Creativity Exercisesa kick in the pants.
Tim Stellmach,
What is a Creativity Exercise?
For our purposes, anything that changes your way of thinking about a problem (or opportunity)
Especially techniques to cultivate new ideas
Applicable at any stage of the process.
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Analysis is not a very good means of generating ideas.
Intuition is, by definition, not responsive to systemization.
What cannot be commanded might still be coaxed.
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Things You May Already Do
Many activities change what parts of your brain are working, and encourage other parts to relax.
Identifying these triggers and exploiting them on purpose can be powerful.
Not usually a great thing for groups, though.
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Examples:
Exercise
Risks, drawbacks, criticism
Opportunities, possibilities, alternatives
Effective Brainstorming
“The best way to get a good idea is to get a lot of ideas.”
— Linus Pauling
Build and Jump:
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A Simple Brainstorming Format
Present a clear statement of the problem at hand.
Everybody gets enough Post-It™ notes for more than the obvious answers. Go! (stretch, number counts)
Put the notes on the wall. Everybody move them about putting like with like (get physical, use spatial memory).
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A Simple Brainstorming Format
Sift (build and jump):
Which ideas are very common, which rare or unique?
What does that mean? Does what that means suggest new ideas?
What are the combinations, gaps, intermediaries, or components?
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Randomization Exercises
Select a theme, element, or piece of advice from some random source.
Get you past a blank slate.
Encourage very unexpected thought patterns
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I Ching (or Ouija Board)
Boggle™
Try an old idea.
Go outside. Shut the door.
Tidy Up
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Exercise: The Epigrams of Heraclitus
Heraclitus was an Ionian philosopher of the late 6th century B.C. This is great because his stuff is way out of copyright.
His epigrams make a pretty good “oblique strategies” type deck
Idea copped from Roger Von Oech. For his translations, you want Expect the Unexpected or You Won’t Find It.
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Break up into groups.
If others in your Three Musketeers group are here, you probably want them at your table.
Start by posing questions or issues.
Pretend to trust and believe an epigram. What does it mean?
Repeat.