Thinking creatively about change Facilitator notes These notes are designed to guide facilitation of a 90-minute creative thinking session which assumes that parallel groups of colleagues (ideally between 5 and 10 in each group) are each working on respective shared projects. The room should be set up so that each group is clustered in a semi-circle around a display board (with 3 flipchart sheets pinned up where ideas generated can be posted. Each group also has its own flipchart and marker pens, and each individual has a pad of Post-Its (at least 30 sheets per person). 1. Icebreaker (5 mins.) Ask everyone to stand up. Each group places one chair with its back to the display board, facing outwards into the semi-circle. Explain that you will be making a short series of subjective statements, and that individuals must move themselves within their group space in relation to the chair: being on the chair denotes 100% agreement with the statement, while further distances away indicate relative disagreement. Make each statement, then give each team a minute or so to share their perspectives each time. Statements depend on the outcomes you desire for the session, but might include: “I enjoyed breakfast this morning” (warm-up) “Our team has identified what will enable us to succeed” “Our project is clear about its impact measures” 2. Identifying challenges (5 mins.) Ask each individual to think of a challenge which the group’s project faces, written on a Post-it as a ‘How do we/I…?’ question. The challenges are posted randomly on the flipchart. 3. Selecting the challenge (15 mins.) Ask the group to draw a square on the flipchart, and arrange the challenges so that they fit as follows: easy challenges (middle of the square); the maximum of what is possible (edge or corners within the square); beyond what is possible (outside the square). The group should then select one challenge from the edge/corners, and write this in bold across the top of the flipchart, as a question. 4. Quiet round (10 mins.) Explain that there will now be a sequence of 4 different activities to generate ideas in response to the challenge question. The first involves individuals sitting in silence for 5 minutes, thinking of their own ideas, writing each one as a separate Post-It, and keeping it for the time being. Ask each individual to go up to the display board in turn, and place each of their ideas, reading this out so that the rest of the group can hear. Ask people to avoid expounding their ideas – they should simply read out what’s on the Post-it, and stick up the Post-it randomly. There should be no judgement, comment or analysis from the rest of the group. 5. Word association (10 mins.) Demonstrate this activity using one of the challenge questions from the room. Groups must choose the 2 most interesting words from their challenge question, and write these in opposite corners of a blank flipchart sheet. They should then call out words which individuals associate with the selected words, and a scribe should write these up. Choose an interesting word from the first ‘layer’ of suggestions, and associate new words out from this. Continue until the sheet is full – this should generate at least 50 words in all. Ask each individual to sit in silence, looking at the words generated, making links as they see fit, and using this as a trigger to generate new ideas – each of which should be captured separately on Post-its and read out to the group. 6. Analogy (10mins.) Each group chooses a product they admire which is not related to education. Give them 4 minutes to list as many of its attributes as possible. Next, relate each attribute to the project challenge. Use this as a trigger for more ideas, and capture them on Post-its on the display board. Remind the groups that they should frame these in terms of outcomes and enabling actions. 7. Assumptions (10 mins.) This is designed to draw out and recognise thoughts that limit new ideas. Give each group 3 minutes to list all the assumptions they can think of which lie behind the challenge question. Groups then have a further 3 minutes to turn around or adapt these assumptions so that they are reversed/transformed. Use this as a final trigger for more ideas, and capture them on Post-its on the display board. 8. Sifting and evaluating the ideas (20 mins.) Draw a set of boxes on a flipchart sheet, labelled: Ordinary and Feasible Extraordinary and Feasible Extraordinary and Unfeasible Ask each individual to pick up one Post-It to put in each box. If their first choice is already taken, they should use their second preference. If time allows, individuals can then ‘vote’ on the ideas collected in the boxes by allocating 10 points (or an imaginary £10,000 budget) between all the ideas they consider interesting – if only one idea, all 10 points go to this; otherwise points are distributed by writing the number on each Post-it. The highest-scoring ideas become priorities for subsequent group action. Paul Gentle Leadership Foundation for Higher Education September 2011