Idea Generation and Innovation Activities

A lateral thinking approach for ideas to a difficult problem

DADs make it easy for a group or community to discover practices and behaviors that enable some individuals (without access to special resources and facing the same constraints) to find better solutions than their peers to common problems. These are called positive deviant (PD) behaviors and practices. DADs make it possible for people in the group, unit, or community to discover by themselves these PD practices.

DADs also create favorable conditions for stimulating participants’ creativity in spaces where they can feel safe to invent new and more effective practices. Resistance to change evaporates as participants are unleashed to choose freely which practices they will adopt or try and which problems they will tackle. DADs make it possible to achieve frontline ownership of solutions.

A problem solving technique to define a problem, challenge or opportunity and to generate ideas.

Uncover and challenge the hidden beliefs, assumptions, and internal voices that are limiting progress toward an important goal. In small groups, one person shares a personal or professional challenge while two others play contrasting “pixie” roles – one advocating for change and possibility and the other representing resistance and caution. Through this playful exchange, participants surface unconscious assumptions, explore opposing perspectives on risks and opportunities, and gain clarity on how to move forward. This structure helps reveal internal barriers, generate new insights, and support more informed action planning in individual and group settings.

When people must tackle a common complex challenge, you can release their inherent creativity and leadership as well as their capacity to self-organize.

Open Space makes it possible to include everybody in constructing agendas and addressing issues that are important to them. Having co-created the agenda and free to follow their passion, people will take responsibility very quickly for solving problems and moving into action. Letting go of central control (i.e., the agenda and assignments) and putting it in the hands of all the participants generates commitment, action, innovation, and follow-through. You can use Open Space with groups as large as a couple of thousand people!

Creating a sentence relating to a specific topic or problem with each person contributing one word at a time.

Een manier van brainstormen die creativiteit aanmoedigt en zorgt dat men voortborduurt op de ideeën van anderen.

Brainwriting kan gebruikt worden als onderdeel van een uitgebreidere toekomstverkenning. Lees de oefening Scenario-analyse voor een overzicht van alle opdrachten die hier onderdeel van uitmaken.

With this facilitation technique you can immediately include everyone regardless of how large the group is. You can generate better ideas and more of them faster than ever before. You can tap the know-how and imagination that is distributed widely in places not known in advance.

Open, generative conversation unfolds. Ideas and solutions are sifted in rapid fashion. Most importantly, participants own the ideas, so follow-up and implementation is simplified. No buy-in strategies needed! Simple and elegant!

Applying existing best practices for new problems

A short visual exercise from the Kaos Pilot School.

Ideation and Concept Development is a process for groups to work creatively and collaboratively to generate creative ideas. It’s a general approach that can be adapted and customized to suit many different scenarios. It includes basic principles for idea generation and several steps for groups to work with. It also includes steps for idea selection and development.