Creative & Critical Thinking Tools
Whether your team is brand-new or has been together for years, brainstorming activities are crucial to reaching your full creative potential.
Idea Generating Tools
Focusing Tools
Idea Generating Tools
Looking to expand on your ideas or dream up new solutions? Give these brainstorming activities a go!
Use when:
You want to generate expanded and varied ideas
How it works:
- Identify your challenge or task with a question like, “How to….?” or “How could we…?”
- Pick a letter from the SCAMPER list, add that to your question, and let the brainstorming begin!
- S - Substitute
- C - Combine
- A - Adapt
- M - Modify, Magnify, Minimize
- P - Put to other uses
- E - Eliminate
- R - Reverse or Rearrange
- You can also check out DI’s SCAMPER tutorial!
Ready to put SCAMPER to use? Try our SCAMPER Marble Race Track team activity!
Use when:
You want to shake up a combination of characteristics
How it Works:
- Create a table. Label the columns with your task’s characteristics and add 10 rows.
- Fill each column with 10 suggestions.
- Take your number of columns, and randomly select that many numbers between 1 and 10!
- Use those numbers to choose 1 item from each column. Combine or mix-and-match these suggestions!
Use when:
You want to unlock your wildest, craziest ideas
How it Works:
- Identify your challenge or task.
- Choose an unrelated object.
- Make one (or more!) connections between the selected object and your challenge or task.
Use when:
You want to improve or enhance the characteristics of an item
How it Works:
- Identify the main components of the item.
- Select one of the components. Ask “How can we change, modify, improve, or enhance this?”
- Repeat step 2 for all of the components.
Use when:
You want to elaborate or expand on a single idea
How it Works:
- Write your core idea in the center of the flower.
- Elaborate on the idea in your first set of petals.
- In the last set of petals, add one wild idea and one possible solution!
Focusing Tools
You’ve finished your brainstorming, and now it’s time to narrow down the options! But how do you choose? Try a focusing tool!
Use when:
You want to analyze the pros, cons, and potential future of an idea
How it works:
- Create a table with 3 columns: Advantages, Limitations (and how to overcome them!), and Unique Features.
- Fill in your columns, review, and see which options are worth developing!
Use when:
You want to evaluate options against specific criteria
How it Works:
- List the options you want to evaluate in rows.
- Identify the criteria used to evaluate your options and write them as column headings.
- Establish a rating scale to use in measuring each option against your criteria.
- Take each criteria and evaluate all the options.
- Summarize your ratings!
Use when:
You want to rank a small number of choices
How it Works:
- List your options and assign each a letter A or B.
- Give each person a set of option cards (A and B) and three point cards (1 point, 2 points, and 3 points).
- Compare option A & option B:
- Vote by holding up your A or B card, and 1, 2, or 3 points card for how strongly you feel about the idea!
- Add the points for each option together. The higher score is your preferred idea, and the difference reveals how strongly your group feels about that option!
- Repeat until you are out of options.
- Rank the letters from the highest number to the lowest number.
Use when:
It’s time to put your ideas into action and you need a project timeline
How it Works:
- Define the length of time each time category represents for your team. Short Term is usually within the next few days, Medium Term can be within one to two or three weeks, and Long Term might be within the next month or two.
- List your tasks.
- Mark each task as Short Term, Medium Term, or Long Term.
- Name the team member(s) who will do each task.
