Creativity Found. Experiment #1
Experiment #1. Problem-solving is creative.
Creativity in the workplace is often thought to reside solely within the realm of the Design department, but I am on a mission to show that creativity reaches far beyond the boundaries of those who label themselves ‘Creatives’.
I recently lead a workshop with people from all around the company — engineering, sales, account management, QA etc. To prove that everyone in the room had the ability to be creative, I structured the workshop in a way that was inclusive of all.
1. Make it easy to participate
Be clear what the aim of the workshop is.
I explained that the aim was to have loads of ideas at the end of the session, things I could go away and prototype and show to users, gather feedback and iterate on. Then everyone knew what was expected of them, and knew we didn’t have to solve everything right away.
Establish a non-judgemental place.
I stated that there were no right or wrong ideas. When you say something like this you have to really mean it. I explained that it doesn’t matter if users don’t like the idea, we’d have plenty of others to try. And that it doesn’t matter if the idea is possible to implement or not, I’d absorb the hard work of figuring that out later.
Let people be comfortable.
There’s a difference between leading people out of their comfort zone, and making people feel lost and out of place. Sketching wasn’t the most natural form of expression for everyone, so most people jotted ideas down as words, but that didn’t inhibit the quality of ideas. Brains were ticking over, which for this workshop, was what mattered most.
Guide the discussion
When we discussed the ideas I didn’t force anyone to speak, just guided the discussion, helping people build on each other's ideas. When there was a lull, I asked if there were any ideas that perhaps didn’t fit into any of the themes raised so far. I found that helped encourage some of the quieter participants to speak up, as maybe they hadn’t felt able to cut into earlier discussions. When no one wanted to raise any more ideas, we simply moved on.
2. Make it easy for everyone to care
Include others as much as possible
Before the workshop I had come up with a load of ‘How might we…’ questions that acknowledged the biggest problem areas that came out of our earlier research. There were too many questions to address in one workshop, so I asked the participants to vote on the ones they thought were most important. People were already excited about there being a solution to these tricky problems before they even arrived at the workshop.
Lead with empathy
The good thing about doing an ideas workshop to answer ‘How might we…’ questions is that they are centred around empathy, not technology. Everyone in the room was familiar with the themes raised, and everyone had an anecdote they could draw on to help them empathise with the user.
3. One little bit of creativity at a time
By the end of the workshop we had gathered 80 ideas, which is incredible! This wasn’t about pressuring the group to come up with one mighty innovative vision. This was about bringing us one step closer to making things better for other people. Everyone had offered their own experiences and things they cared about, resulting in 80 unique ideas that I couldn’t have thought of alone.
After the workshop, many people mentioned how much fun they had had. And I was proud of the team for being so willing to try new things, finding creativity by engaging in a shared vision.
This is one experiment in my Creativity Found mission, where I aim to encourage creativity at work, at home, and online with people I’ve never met before. Find out more about this here.
