101 Activities For Teaching Creativity And Problem Solving

Time

30 minutes

Related Activities

• As Easy As 6–3–5 [81]


• Group Not [83]


• Idea Pool [85]


• Museum Madness [86]


• Organizational Brainstorms [87]

Procedure

1. Distribute the Post-its or paper slips to all participants.


2. Tell them to begin writing one idea on each slip.


3. After 5 to 10 minutes, tell them to stop writing and collect the notes or slips.


4. Appoint a task force to evaluate the ideas. This task force first should sort the
   ideas into categories according to frequency of occurrence or degree of usability.
   Have the task force select the best ideas and develop them into workable ideas.

Debrief/Discussion

This represents the most basic form of brainwriting. Its primary advantage is audience

participation and the ability to collect a large number of ideas from a large number of

people in a short period of time. If you accept the premise that quantity breeds quality,

then it theoretically should be possible to produce some high-quality ideas (that is, ideas

capable of resolving a problem).

Also consider having participants debrief using the following questions:

• What was most helpful about this exercise?


• What was most challenging?


• What can we apply?


• How would you rate the value of this exercise to helping us with this issue?


• Will this exercise be helpful in the future for other sessions?


• What did you learn?


• What will we be able to use from this exercise?


• What ideas were generated, and which ones were most interesting?

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