101 Activities For Teaching Creativity And Problem Solving

Procedure

1. Divide participants into small groups and give each member a pad of Post-it®
   Notes and pens or pencils.


2. Ask group members to write down ideas individually on their Post-its without
   sharing them with others. Stress that they should write down only one idea per
   Post-it®.


3. Tell the group members to take turns reading aloud one of their ideas and have a
   leader/recorder write down these ideas and number them on a flip chart. Empha-
   size that, during this activity, they are not supposed to discuss ideas.


4. Ask the leader in each group to point to each idea listed and ask for discussion.
   Note that the purpose of this activity is to clarify the meaning, purpose, or logic
   behind each idea.


5. Instruct the group members to select, individually, between five and nine favorite
   ideas and write each on a separate Post-it®Note.


6. Have them write the number of the idea (from the master list) in the upper left
   corner of each note and record their rating of the idea (1 = not important; 5 =
   important) in the lower left corner.


7. Tell the group leaders to collect all the notes and record the votes on a flip chart.
   (You may want to allow all the groups to take a break while the group leaders
   tally the votes.) Have the group leaders note the idea receiving the greatest num-
   ber of votes. If a clear winner emerges, tell them that the process is finished.


8. If no clear winner emerges or there is some doubt about the vote tallies, tell the
   group members to examine the vote tally sheets for peculiar patterns (for exam-
   ple, if an idea receives many high and low votes). If they notice an odd pattern,
   tell group members to discuss the item to clarify why that pattern resulted.


9. If necessary, have the groups conduct a final vote using the procedure outlined in
   Steps 6 and 7.

Debrief/Discussion

As with similar activities, a major disadvantage of NGT is that group members don’t see

each other ’s ideas during idea generation. On the other hand, this activity provides a

highly structured process for both idea generation and evaluation. Unlike the other activi-

ties, Group Not builds in a specific process to achieve decision-making closure on the

ideas. This structure can be especially valuable when there is little time for decision mak-

ing. On the other hand, the structure itself may limit decision quality if closure is forced

before adequate discussion of an idea’s strengths and weaknesses. You might want to ask

the participants to discuss how they experienced the structure.

Also consider having participants debrief using the following questions:

• What was most helpful about this exercise?


• What was most challenging?


• What can we apply?

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