Innovation Workout Real-time Brainstorming

Purpose  To let groups experience some of the problems when brainstorming needs to address complex and sophisticated problems that are changing in real time.  Groups have difficulty analyzing problems in four ways:  Difficulty managing conflicts over processes and methods  Impatience with delays, because the decision making is real time  Difficulty in finding patters, because of the distractions of dealing with others and their opinions  Difficulty in establishing authority and responsibility for decision making, and the tendency to descend into the negative chaos of ‘groupthink’

The Workout  Divide into groups of four to seven  In each team, each of the participants marks the backs of their hands with a number from 1 to 7 (if the team has fewer than seven participants, some may have to mark both hands).  Lay three pieces of paper in front of each team.  Participants stack their hands on one paper in order from "7" on the bottom to "1" on the top. This is the "start" position.  Each team is to restack their hands in the exact same order (with "7" on the bottom) using only these moves:  a. Move only one hand at a time.  b. Move a hand onto another hand (or stack of hands) or onto an empty paper.  c. Move only the top hand on a stack.  d. Never move a hand on top of a lower num­bered hand.

For example  "3" can never be placed on top of "1" or "2."  "3" can be placed on top of "4" or "5" or “6" or "7” or and empty paper  "5" cannot be placed on top of "1" or "2" or "3" or 4  "5" cannot be pulled out from under any number of hands; it can be moved only when it is on top.

Debriefing Ask these questions  What strategy did you use to be successful?  How were differences of opinion about how to move handled in your team?  Did you have a leader? How was he or she selected?  When someone on your team thought he or she knew the solution or at least the next move, how did he or she behave? How did you respond to that?  Did you ever feel like you were backtracking? How did that make you feel? (Frustrated, like we were wasting time, we had messed up, etc.)  When do we backtrack to move forward in our organization?  What implications does this have for real world group problem solving (and the management of people who have to solve problems)?