101 Activities For Teaching Creativity And Problem Solving

Free Association Activities: “Blue Skies” 181

39. Exaggerate That

Background

Have you ever stretched the truth? Come on, now—be truthful. Most people have exag-

gerated something, at some time in their lives, even if it’s only a slight distortion. Exag-

gerations not only make us feel better, they also can add excitement to our interactions.

The more extreme and vivid our exaggerations, the more attention they will attract.

Each instance of truth stretching is a stimulus. And stimuli can help generate ideas.

There must be the makings of an idea generation activity here somewhere! And there is.

It’s known as Exaggerated Objectives (Olson, 1980). With it, you generate ideas by listing

problem criteria, exaggerating them in any way possible, and then using the exaggera-

tions as stimuli to prompt ideas.

Objectives

• To help participants generate as many creative ideas as possible


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

Participants

Small groups of four to seven people each

Materials, Supplies, and Equipment

• For each group: markers, two flip charts, and masking tape for posting flip-chart
  sheets


• For each participant: one sheet each of three different colors of sticking dots
  (^1 ⁄ 2 ” diameter) and one pad of 4 x 6 Post-it®Notes

Handout

• Exaggerate That Handout

Time

60 minutes

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