101 Activities For Teaching Creativity And Problem Solving

87. Organizational Brainstorms

Background

John Haefele (1961), an employee of Procter & Gamble, developed this activity and called

it the Collective Notebook Method. It is unique among the group activities in this book in

that it is the only activity in which ideas are not generated in a small-group setting.

Instead, ideas come from a select group of employees throughout an organization.

The original version of Organizational Brainstorms is somewhat similar to Group Not

[83] and Your Slip Is Showing [90]. All these activities involve generating ideas without

sharing them with other participants. A variation, however, does permit limited idea

sharing.

Objectives

• To help participants generate as many creative ideas as possible


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

Participants

Selected participants from throughout an organization

Materials, Supplies, and Equipment

• One notebook and pens or pencils for each participant

Procedure

1. Pre-select participants from throughout an organization (representing different
   areas of knowledge related to the problem) and give each a notebook containing
   problem information and instructions on the process.


2. Instruct the participants to write one idea per day in their notebooks.


3. At the end of one month, instruct the participants to summarize their best ideas.


4. Collect all the notebooks, record and categorize the ideas, and prepare a summary.


5. Provide the participants a copy of the summary and invite them to discuss the
   ideas generated during a face-to-face meeting.

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