Exercises: Creativity, ideas and solutions

Explain what creativity applied to a project is, and how a solid idea differs from a passing thought. Give an example of each, thinking about improving your school playground.

In a brainstorming session, the team wrote these rules on the whiteboard, but two are wrong and undermine creativity. Identify which ones they are and correct them: (a) the more ideas, the better; (b) criticise each idea as soon as it is said so as not to waste time; (c) build on other people's ideas and improve them; (d) immediately rule out wild ideas; (e) no judging while ideas are being proposed.

The diagram shows the stages of design thinking, but the last one is covered with a question mark. In addition, a dashed arrow indicates that the process is not a one-way street.

1. a) State which stage is missing and explain in one sentence what is done in each of the five stages.
2. b) Explain what the dashed arrow means and why being able to go back along it is good news.

Explain what brainstorming is and write the four basic rules that make it work. Then apply it: run a mini-brainstorm on your own and write six ideas for improving the school library, without filtering any out no matter how wild they seem.

Distinguish divergent thinking from convergent thinking with an example from your life: deciding where to celebrate your birthday. Describe what you do at the diverging stage and what you do at the converging stage, and why mixing the two at the same time spoils the process.

The SCAMPER technique suggests looking at a product and asking: what can I substitute, combine, adapt, modify, put to other uses, eliminate or rearrange? Choose three of those questions and apply them to the school backpack to propose three concrete improvements.

Explain what it means that 'in the idea-generation stage there are no bad ideas' and at which point of the process judging and discarding does come in. Give an example of an idea that looked bad in a school project but, combined with another one, ended up being useful (it can be made up but must be realistic).

Match each creative technique with its description: (a) brainstorming; (b) mind map; (c) the six thinking hats; (d) analogies. Descriptions: (1) looking at the problem from fixed points of view (facts, emotions, risks, benefits…); (2) saying lots of ideas without judging them; (3) organising a central idea into branches; (4) solving the problem by thinking of a similar one from another field. Give a school example for one of them.

Your school canteen has huge queues and half the food ends up in the bin. Apply design thinking: describe a concrete action for each of the five stages (what exactly you would do to empathise, how you would define the problem, etc.).

A team says: 'we already have the idea, we don't need all this process: let's build it directly'. Explain what is lost by skipping the empathise and define stages, and give an example of a school project that could fail by tackling the wrong problem.

In the ideation stage, two phases alternate: coming up with many different ideas without judging (diverging) and keeping the best ones by evaluating pros and cons (converging). Explain the difference using an example applied to this challenge: getting more students to cycle to school.

Your team must come up with ways to raise $300\ \text{€}$ for the end-of-year trip. Do the whole process on paper: five minutes of diverging (write at least eight ideas without judging), then two converging criteria (for example: effort versus expected return) and keep the two best ideas, justifying your choice.

The school canteen wants to reduce bread waste. Apply SCAMPER with four of its letters (substitute, combine, other uses, eliminate) and generate one proposal per letter. Then choose the most viable one and explain what makes it better than the others.

A team coming up with improvements for the playground only proposes expensive things: artificial grass, giant screens, a café. Explain what 'fixation' on the first ideas is and describe two techniques to unblock the team (changing the question, forcing impossible ideas and taming them, looking for analogies in other playgrounds). Apply them and write two cheap ideas that could come out.

Design an analogy for this challenge: 'getting students to arrive on time for the first lesson'. Think about what airports, shows or video games do to get people to arrive on time, and transfer two mechanisms to the school. Explain why analogies work as a creative springboard.

Your team has brainstormed for the cultural week and has a whiteboard with $24$ mixed-up ideas. Design the converging process: how you group them into families, what criterion you use to discard without endless arguing, and how you decide between the three finalists (weighted vote, impact/effort matrix…). Apply it with an example.

Nayla's team is in love with their first idea: a mobile phone charging locker for the corridor. They have been designing it for three weeks without asking anyone if they would actually use it.

1. a) Analyse which stages of design thinking they are skipping and what specific risks that involves.
2. b) Design two cheap and quick tests they could carry out this week to see if they are on the right track.

Challenge: 'the playground is empty and boring during winter breaks'. Design a complete mini creative process: a technique for empathising, a statement defining the specific problem, a technique for generating at least ten solutions, and a criterion for choosing the best one with your team.

'Constraints kill creativity.' Discuss this statement with a school example where a constraint (low budget, limited time, small space) pushed — or could push — for a more ingenious solution than one that would come from unlimited resources.

The council of a village of $3.000$ inhabitants wants ideas to stop young people from leaving. A consultant proposes 'a skatepark', as in every village.

1. a) Analyse why that proposal may be an example of a poor definition stage: what real problem might lie behind 'the young people are leaving'?
2. b) Design how you would empathise with the village's young people (three concrete actions) and rewrite the challenge with a formulation that opens up more solutions than the skatepark.

Your team must reduce mobile phone use at break times, but 'banning it' is off the table.

1. a) Reformulate the challenge in three different ways (from the students' side, from the space, from leisure alternatives) and explain how each formulation pushes towards different ideas.
2. b) Choose one formulation, generate three ideas with it and justify which one you would prototype first with a test of less than a week.

One study says that teams which start by ideating 'the worst possible solutions' end up with more original proposals than those that go straight for the best idea.

1. a) Explain what psychological mechanism can make looking for the bad unlock the good (breaking fixation, laughing at the problem, discovering what is essential).
2. b) Put it to the test on paper: write three 'worst solutions' for the problem of canteen queues and turn one of them into a good idea by flipping it around.

The teacher sets a challenge with very limited resources: improve playground life together with $0\ \text{€}$ and only what is already at the school.

1. a) Explain why such a hard constraint can produce more ingenious ideas than a budget of $5.000\ \text{€}$.
2. b) Generate two proposals that meet the constraint and design a quick test for one of them: what you would do next week to find out whether it works.

'Creativity is a matter of talent: either you have it or you don't.' Take a stance, arguing with what you know about the creative process (stages, techniques, diverging and converging) and with an example in which a concrete method produced ideas that 'inspiration' would never have brought. Acknowledge what part of truth the statement has (not everyone starts from the same point) and explain why, even so, method matters more than talent.

Unit challenge. Do you have what it takes to be an entrepreneur and respond to real needs? Show your initiative by designing an innovative solution to an everyday problem in your immediate surroundings.

1. Field research: Ask $5$ people around you (family, friends, or neighbours) which domestic or everyday task causes them the most frustration or waste of time. Ask them to rate their level of annoyance from $1$ to $5$. Tabulate the answers and calculate the arithmetic mean obtained (for example, $3,8$).

2. Creative ideation: Select the need with the highest score and generate $3$ solution ideas by applying divergent thinking (combining two existing services, digitising a manual process, or eliminating an unnecessary step). Choose the most original and viable proposal.

3. Entrepreneurial proposal: Write a one-page executive report with the name of the project, the problem validated with your survey data, the description of your solution, and the justification of which entrepreneurial attitudes (such as resilience or risk-taking) you would need to activate to carry it out.

Assessment criteria:

• Rigorous collection and tabulation of the data obtained in the micro-survey and correct calculation of the mean.

• Creativity, originality, and feasibility of the solution devised for the detected problem.

• Coherent and justified identification of the entrepreneurial attitudes needed to bring the proposal to life.