101 Activities For Teaching Creativity And Problem Solving

Post-it®Notes. (This procedure of writing new ideas on the notes helps ensure that

no ideas are left out of consideration.)

9. Tell them to repeat this process (Steps 7 and 8) until they have considered all pos-
   sible pairs of stimuli (that is, related and unrelated from the different balloon col-
   ors) and generated as many ideas as possible, writing them on Post-it®Notes (one
   idea per note) and placing them on flip charts for evaluation.

Debrief/Discussion

This approach is similar to using paper airplanes (Out of the Blue Lightning Cloudbuster

[88]) in terms of the amount of fun involved. As a facilitator you will want to manage

how much fun the groups have, so that they keep focused on the task of generating ideas.

In addition to creating a climate conducive for idea generation during this exercise, the

fun factor also can help spark a productive climate in subsequent idea generation ses-

sions.

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?

Variation

1. Use any combination of balloon colors and give each participant two balloons.


2. Have them write, on a small slip of paper, an idea for resolving the problem,
   insert their papers into the balloons, and blow them up.


3. Tell them to tap the balloons around the large group as described above, pop two
   balloons each, and return to their tables with the two slips of paper.


4. Ask each person in a group to read one of the ideas aloud and have the other
   group members try to improve it or think of another idea.


5. Ask another person to read one of the ideas on their paper slips and again have
   the other group members think of improvements or new ideas.


6. Once everyone has shared one of his or her two original ideas, repeat the process
   (Steps 4 and 5) using the second slips of paper.

362 101 Activities for Teaching Creativity and Problem Solving

12 VG 355-388 10/6/04 1:30 PM Page 362