Brainstorm as many possible solutions to your challenge as you can. Open yourself up to zany ideas, without worrying (yet!) about how to make them happen. Sometimes a wacky, idealistic idea will spark a solution that’s both creative and practical.
KEY STEPS
- Create / review guidelines for brainstorming, emphasizing the need to create a safe, supportive space for sharing ideas.
- Revisit your guiding question, and help everyone stay focused on coming up with potential solutions that answer it.
- Remember to go for quantity! You want to generate as many ideas as possible.
BEFORE MOVING ON:
- Make sure you’ve come up with lots and lots of ideas.
- Let the whole group review all of the ideas. If they mostly sound pretty similar, you may need to do another round of brainstorming, using a different activity. Go for diversity!
- Think about linking ideas. Are there ideas that could somehow work together, even if they’re completely different? Bumping Molecules is a good activity for consolidating ideas.
