Teams and individuals can use this one.
There are things about your organisation that have to be the way they
are or that will not change as the result of a creativity session. These
things will be ignored during the creation of ideas, because they are so
fundamental that there is no point wasting time thinking about them. The
risk that you, and all other companies, face is that there is a
competitor out there, somewhere, who is willing to break those
sacrosanct rules and, as a result, will take you to the cleaners.
Spend some time with the group thinking about the problem area and, in
particular, the things around it that will always be the way they are.
Now treat those aspects of the problem as sacred cows and wheel them
into the abattoir. If these restrictions were removed, what obstacles
would be removed with them? What problems would be caused by their
removal? Now spend some time generating solutions to your problem in a
world where this sort of restriction does not exist.
You will find that the most difficult aspect of this technique is
generating the initial list of sacred cows. In many businesses they are
so much a part of the organization that they do not even appear
consciously. One way to facilitate this is to start with a list of what
we do around here; for instance, what do we wear, what time do we work,
etc. Expand this list into a list of what others require us to do.
Expand that into a list of what is required in the area of this problem.
This technique works best in organizations that have a strong corporate
culture. This is where the unwritten rules reside. In such an
organization, it may offer real freedom to participants to generate
fresh ideas.
If an outsider can be involved, they may spot your sacred cows better
than you can. Whether you take the abattoir theme to its logical extreme
and provide the blood spattered aprons, the cleavers and the cow sound
effects is your decision.
Creativity
requires spending time "doing nothing" - workaholism guarantees its
death
_______________________________________________________________________________
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bs@futurevisions.org
with "free MWS 12
intelligence types" in the subject line and nothing in the body.
