Hit the Block
3 exercises to get the creative engine running
My first car was a ’65 VW Bug that had been in my family for 30 years by the time I inherited it. A car that old comes with some quirks. Bernie (every old car needs a name) had a rollerblade wheel rigged to a bolt for a gas pedal and a driver’s side door that didn’t open from the inside, which meant rolling down the window to open it from the outside. Also, ol’ Bernie didn’t care for the cold. In the winter I would have to knock on the starter block with a hammer to get the engine to turn over.
Getting a team together for a brainstorm is a bit like getting Bernie’s engine to turn over in the winter. Sometimes you just need to bang on the starter block a little.
Here are a few exercises I have found effective in starting the collective creative engine.
Design a Mobile Workspace (~10 mins)
You and your assigned group just learned that you have to live and work on a tour bus for six months while you take a grand tour of the U.S. visiting all of your U.S. customers. You have an unlimited amount of money and you are required to spend it on building the perfect bus to both live and work in. In groups of 4–5, brainstorm design features and creature comforts you would have on your own bus. Start by individually brainstorming all the features you want the bus to have. Then come together, share your ideas with your team, and design the bus interior on paper. There are only 2 rules: you have to agree on what features to include and the bus has to be functional in the end. Teams will have 8 minutes for this task. When the 8 minutes are up each team gets 1 minute to present their bus to the larger group. [Source: modified from HOW Design’s 30 Days to Creative Bliss]
This exercise is particularly good at warming up teams that are going to need to reach a consensus together. This works well in groups of 4 to 5 people each. I once had a team vote in favor of sleeping on floating rafts on their rooftop pool rather than bunks in order to fit their bocce ball court inside the bus. Here’s to the dreamers!
The Game Maker (~15 mins)
Break the group into 2–3 teams, depending on your size. Have the teams create a game out of what they can reach right now. Not what’s on their desks or across the room, but what they can literally reach from their current position. If you can stretch out your arm and touch it, you can use it. Your game must have rules. It must produce a winner and, therefore, a loser; if everyone wins, no one wins. It can be a game of skill or a game of chance, it can take time or be done quickly. Create a game in 10 minutes or less and spend another 5–10 minutes demonstrating your game to the group. [Source: HOW Creative Bootcamp]
The Game Maker is a good choice when you are working with groups of people who might be feeling a little nervous about creative brainstorming. A group of engineers may balk at the idea of drawing interfaces, but will usually go all in on game design.
Alternative Uses
Developed by J.P. Guilford in 1967, the Alternative Uses Test stretches your creativity by giving you two minutes to think of as many uses as possible for an everyday object like a chair, roll of tape, or paperclip. Here’s a sample brainstorm for “paper clip” uses:
- Hold papers together
- Cufflinks
- Earrings
The goal is to go for quantity. The more ideas the better. Don’t self-edit, just get those ideas out and on paper. [Source: 99U]
Alternative Uses work well for getting your group in divergent mode. I have found that some people are not comfortable coming up with half-baked ideas or ideas that are not thought all the way through. When diverging it is all about quantity over quality. The more ideas the better, even if they have major holes in them. This activity helps get participants over the hurdle of seeking perfection when ideating.
Bernie and ideation are not that different. Even though Bernie took a bit more work to get started than just turning a key, she was a great car and we had a lot of fun adventures together. So, the next time you find yourself in a brainstorm that lacks big ideas think small first and try one of these warm-up exercises out.
