101 Activities For Teaching Creativity And Problem Solving

101 Activities for Teaching Creativity and Problem Solving.Copyright © 2005 by John Wiley &

Sons, Inc. Reproduced by permission of Pfeiffer, an Imprint of Wiley. http://www.pfeiffer.com

Time

30 minutes

Related Activities

• Idea Showers [61]

Procedure

1. To stimulate idea production, impose a deadline on small groups to generate at
   least twenty-five ideas in 20 minutes.


2. Ask the groups to notify you if they reach their goal early. If they do, challenge
   them to think of five more ideas within 5 minutes and so forth until all groups
   have finished.


3. Tell them to write down any ideas on Post-it®Notes (one idea per note) and place
   them on flip charts for evaluation.

Debrief/Discussion

Whatever deadlines you impose, make sure they are realistic. Remember, however, that

what is realistic is relative. It all depends on the perceiver. Thus, I might perceive a dead-

line of two hours as realistic, but such a time period might evoke immediate panic in

someone else. If your deadline is not realistic, it won’t be motivating. Ask the participants

to discuss how they are affected by deadlines and in what situations they are more or less

affected.

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?

Basic Idea Generation: “No-Brainers” 51

04 VG 39-76b 10/5/04 5:31 PM Page 51