Library of facilitation techniques

This is a fun icebreaker or energizer! Great for laughs and energy, the shedding of stress, status and roles.

Observing the lives of others is not only an essential element of how we define our own identities, it can also be a great spark for creativity. This activity was inspired by a blog post by Russell Davies.

This specific activity is perfect both for honing your listening and observation skills, but also how to turn this into an everyday documentary-style output. Oh and by the way, he does warn that this activity should be done with a certain level of sensitivity to the subjects you are observing.

One of the best ways to explore creativity is through building. Simple low fidelity prototypes can allow us to transform simple (and at times complex) ideas into something physical. In doing so we inevitably open a space for continuing to explore, reevaluate and iterate.

The connection between walking and enhanced creativity has a long history. The philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche (1889) wrote, “All truly great thoughts are conceived by walking”. New research has backed up what many have thought for centuries with data, quantifying the effect of walking on human thought. Researchers at Stanford recently found that walking outside led to almost 3 times as many creative ideas as sitting indoors.

Have you ever been in the middle of a discussion with a group that is trying to reach a decision about something and realized that you actually don’t have much of a stake in what happens? Or, have you ever been advocating for a group to take things in a certain direction and notice that others (for whom the outcome will not be relevant) are arguing just as passionately as you are?

Many times when we are trying to make decisions as a group, involved parties care about the outcome, but at varying levels. This tool helps identify who actually has a stake in the outcome and allows a group to get perspective on which voice(s) should be a priority in the decision process.

Any creative endeavour can generate a certain amount of anxiety. The first step is always the hardest… has anyone not heard that before?

In his book ‘Being Creative’, Michael Avatar suggests that we draw inspiration from the Zen Buddhist idea of the 'beginner's mind' - where everything is beginning. In a beginner's mind there is possibility, openness, curiosity: all qualities that are useful for an exploration of creativity. This activity is a short, grounding ideation and exploration that taps into the beginner's mind.

A tool that helps a designer assess the demands a product/design puts on the user. This tool can be used by anyone creating a product, design, or service and wants to critically assess its demand on users.

If curiosity and empathy can be a driver of creativity, there is no reason why they need be restricted to the observation of others. A range of technologies increasingly allow us to track, monitor and in doing so discover things about our own behaviours. Much of creativity is centred on making visible the invisible and for this reason spending time experimenting tools which allow us to do this may help us reflect on the potential for digital tools to be part of our creative toolbox.