Workshop Exercises: Ideate
Bad Idea Brainstorming
Produce the silliest, craziest, and most unethical ideas and turn them good
Why: Deconstructing seemingly rotten ideas can reveal powerful insights serving as foundations for good plans elsewhere
When: Useful to build trust and lower the pressure to be creative by removing self-editing and self-consciousness
Instructions for running this play
- Frame problem. Articulate on the challenge you want to explore. How Might We…* is a great way to frame it.
- Generate bad ideas. Spend time coming up with the worst ideas you can think of. Good starter questions are:
- What are the worst ways to solve this problem?
- What unethical products or services could we create?
- What are some terrible taglines for our campaign?
Consider using familiar ideation formats like the Crazy Eights, Round Robin, or just Silent Storming, to get the flow going.
- Convert bad ideas. Look back at your ideas and reflect whether any of the bad ideas can be turned into good ones. Search for the opposite of the worst attribute and consider substituting it with something better.
Mix and match various awful ideas to see what happens.
Tips to perfect this play
Master and adapt the play to fit your context and needs.
Tip: Go first
Take the pressure off by letting your own worst ideas flow.
Tip: Quantity is king
Come up with as many bad ideas as we can.
Tip: Opposites
Search for the opposite of the worst attribute.
Tip: Rotate stations
Instead of passing ideas around, have teams rotate around static idea stations
Every card deck includes workshop patterns, so your team can put the methods to work in your next session.
Running behavioral design workshops? The Persuasive Patterns Workshop Playbook (PDF) shows you how to design and run them.
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