Library of facilitation techniques

Idea Generation and Innovation Activities

Idea generation techniques to get your group into creative thinking mode and boost innovation. Help people to find new perspectives and build on the collective inspiration of your group.

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Gamestorming methods

3-12-3 Brainstorm

This format for brainstorming compresses the essentials of an ideation session into one short format. The numbers 3-12-3 refer to the amount of time in minutes given to each of three activities: 3 minutes for generating a pool of observations, 12 for combining those observations into rough concepts, and 3 again for presenting the concepts back to a group.

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Liberating Structures

Options Place (Open Space Technology)

In Options Place, participants propose and lead their own breakout sessions instead of following a preset agenda. This unleashes people’s creativity and invites them to attend sessions that match their interests. When given the freedom to shape the agenda, participants become more engaged and take greater ownership of solutions, which leads to greater commitment, action, innovation, and follow-through. In this way, Options Place brings to life LS Principle #6, Amplify Freedom and Responsibility. This structure works well for large groups.

Hyper Island

Rapid Research

A simple exercise that complements exploratory, discursive, and creative workshops with insights and opinions from outside. Use this exercise when brainstorming ideas, developing a new product or service or creating a strategy or plan that will include others. Participants phone a co-worker and ask them questions relevant to the task. This quickly generates meaningful input from a range of “outside” perspectives. Often, participants will be surprised at how simple it was to solicit this input and how valuable it is to the process.

Teampedia Tools

MindSpin

A fast and loud method to enhance brainstorming within a team. Since this activity has more than round ideas that are repetitive can be ruled out leaving more creative and innovative answers to the challenge.

Gamestorming methods

The Anti-Problem

The Anti-Problem game helps people get unstuck when they are at their wit’s end. It is most useful when a team is already working on a problem, but they’re running out of ideas for solutions. By asking players to identify ways to solve the problem opposite to their current problem, it becomes easier to see where a current solution might be going astray or where an obvious solution isn’t being applied.