101 Activities For Teaching Creativity And Problem Solving

66. Rice Storm

Background

Not all brain activities help all people. If one activity doesn’t seem helpful, try another.

But if you find yourself totally stumped during idea generation, it may be time to back up

instead of plunging blindly ahead with more ideas. The solution may not be trying more

activities or finding more creative people. Instead, you may need to devote some time to

ensuring that the problem is understood.

This need for clarifying a problem is especially critical in groups. The more people

involved in problem solving, the greater the number of perceptions that must be dealt

with. Each individual may see a problem from a different perspective. In such situations,

the group won’t be able to generate ideas until all group members are aligned in their

perceptions.

Rice Storm (also called the TKJ Method) is a Japanese activity developed by

Kobayashi and Kawakita as described in Michalko (1991). It has two stages: (1) under-

standing the problem and (2) solving the problem. Understanding involves ensuring that

each group member grasps the essence of the problem; solving involves encouraging

individuals to participate in idea generation.

Objectives

• To help participants generate as many creative ideas as possible


• To help participants learn how to use the activities to generate ideas

Participants

Small groups of four to seven people each

Materials, Supplies, and Equipment

• For each group: markers, one flip chart, masking tape for posting flip-chart sheets,
  and one deck of 4 x 6 index cards.


• For each participant: one sheet each of three different colors of sticking dots
  (^1 ⁄ 2 ” diameter) and one pad of 4 x 6 Post-it®Notes

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