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Aim
If you feel daunted by a new task, it is often difficult to get started when you are not sure how to achieve your aims. Use this creativity exercise to help you and your team think about what you would do to tackle a seemingly unachievable task.
This exercise asks you and your team to draw up a plan of action for a project that you have been unexpectedly requested to complete in substantially less time than was originally assigned. The exercise will take 30 to 40 minutes.
Learning Objectives
Team members will be able to…
- think about working in a different way
- come up with new, original ideas about how to improve the speed and efficiency of their jobs
- think about taking on new roles and responsibilities, demonstrating initiative and contributing in ways that they may not have considered under normal circumstances
- think about what they could do to coach, assist and encourage other team members in performing familiar tasks more effectively, as well as taking on entirely new tasks
- come up with an action plan that records the key decisions the team has arrived at by consensus
Preparation
The premise of this exercise is as follows:
You and your team have been working on a particular project for a couple of weeks now, safe in the knowledge that there are over three months until it is due for completion. At lunchtime today, you and your team were suddenly informed by your chief executive that, as a result of unforeseen circumstances which cannot be revealed at this point, your completion deadline has been moved forward substantially. Your deadline is now less than a month away.
Before the exercise begins, adapt the above premise to reflect a true team scenario. Pick a project that is either in place or has been in place in the past. It is best if this is a project in which all your team members have been involved. The timescales can be played around with too, e.g. if most of your projects only require a couple of weeks, cut the time now allowed down to four or five days.
Suggested Resources
- flipchart and pens
- task sheet – see below
What to Do (20–30 minutes)
Explain the aim and objectives of the exercise.
Distribute the task sheet.
Read the project briefing.
Explain to your team that, in this exercise, the normal way of working should be discouraged. This is for two reasons. First, doing things the normal way won’t allow you to complete the project in time. Second, it will not allow you the freedom and creativity to come up with the kinds of ideas necessary to dramatically cut down the time it takes to complete the project.
Your role in this exercise is to observe, supervise and facilitate rather than direct and control. Once you have set the ball rolling, you should take a back seat and let team members choose where the discussion is going. As you go along, note new ideas on a flipchart.
Review Activity (5 minutes)
At the end of the session, draw up an action plan together, outlining how you will work as a team to meet this new deadline. Once the action plan is complete, announce the end of the scenario.
Apply Learning (5 minutes)
Lead a brief discussion around how people felt the session went. Ask if there are any ideas that the team feel could be carried over into normal working procedures. Note these down and introduce them at your next team meeting.
Empowering for Action - Task Sheet
This exercise is designed to help you think about what you would do when faced with a seemingly unachievable task.
Task
- In your group, listen to the project briefing then assume that it is absolutely imperative that the time taken to complete the project is substantially reduced (for example, by half).
- Consider applying some of the creativity techniques below, to help generate ideas about how you will complete the project.
- Record your ideas on a flipchart.
- Once you have generated your list of ideas, note whether any of the ideas are worth introducing and discuss what you have learnt about your team from the exercise.
Creativity Techniques
Change Your Brain
This is a technique to change your perspective when examining a problem so that you can see it in a different light.
Decide to look at a problem from the perspective of a new employee, a customer or a supplier.
or
Ask questions to turn the perspective around, e.g.:
- How could we make customers really angry?
- What do we need to do to make sure we exceed our budget by 50% this year?
List the responses.
Look at the opposites to the answers given and see if these can be turned or flipped into positive ideas.
Capture the good ideas and generate an action plan to implement them.
Random Word
This technique uses the generation of a random word to prompt creative thinking. The trick to the exercise is stop your mind from thinking that this is silly and to concentrate on the exercise.
- Select a word at random from a magazine, newspaper or dictionary.
- Establish some bridging ideas from the random word to the topic you are trying to generate ideas around. For example, suppose you were trying to generate ideas about dining-rooms and the random word was spaceman. The bridging idea could be to think about the implications of having a dining-room in space and the impact gravity would have on eating.
- Try replacing the problem object with the random word and see what ideas you can generate.
- Discuss how you can apply the ideas behind the random word to your problem.
- Note what the benefits you want to achieve are and how the random word could help you.
False Rules
Like the ‘random word’ technique, this method encourages individuals and teams to think about a problem in a new light.
- Select a rule that is obviously a false rule to your situation. A good way is to choose a rule from a different situation to the one you face, e.g. assume that applicants must be over the age of 75 or that the product must be heated in the oven before use.
- As with the ‘random word’ technique, establish a bridging idea to your problem.
- Look at applying the rule to your problem and see where this takes you.
- Why does the rule exist in its environment? Is there something similar in your environment? Note your ideas.
