When you are stuck in a brainstorming session

When you’re experimenting a group work with new people the group dynamic can be really good or quiet bad. If you’re in the case of, for example, making an idea generation session but the group dynamic isn’t that much productive, fun or whatever you expected it can be good to make a creative break.

A time to talk not produce

A creative break allows people to take a nice coffee and to talk about none project related stuff. This means people begin to speak about things that really matter to them and allows people to create a more standard social interaction not driven by results. It can also be a time where people can talk about the way they felt during the idea generation process. In fact people will not interrupt the idea generation process to propose an other more efficient way of working. But during a break they have not the fear to « break the process » and so they will be able to communicate with much ease how they feel about the working method. Often speaking about what « failed » in a previous idea generation session gives the opportunity to the group to be aware of this problematic and resolve it later.

A new start

After a break you have again the possibility to create a new mood for the group, from the beginning, without having to interrupt something or someone. A break is therefore a new start for the group, where each participant is «rested» and therefore more positive and willing to work. It’s finally also a possibility to try a new way of working before the next break.

I think that the creative break is something that is really useful to give a new start to conversation or meeting which do not fit the expectation of the group. Therefore if a group is experiencing such a situation it shouldn’t think that it’s on keeping the road that they will come to a good working situation. On the other side, the creative break isn’t such a good idea when a group dynamic is really productive, focused, maybe then it’s better to build on this motivation until you see the first signs of down going motivation.
So, when group work doesn’t work, just take a coffee some «croissant» and life will be beautiful again !

This is part of a serie about the idea generation methods.
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Photo: Jacob Bøtter Flickr / Creative Commons