Idea Spiral

Purpose: to make new ideas, to build on each other’s ideas and to give more people ownership to the ideas.

If you are interested in seeing the exercise done, you can click on the video-icon in the bar to the right.

Description:
An Idea spiral is an effective idea developing technique about literally saying "yes and" to each other’s ideas. The method is great in cohesion with a brainstorm.

Purpose:

to make new ideas
to build on each other’s ideas
to give more people ownership to the ideas

Time:

5-15 minutes

Materials needed:

20 pieces of paper or a post-it block and a felt pen for all the participants.

Best suited for:

2-100 persons, but can also be done with many parallel groups.

How to get started:

- Place 2-4 people together. If needed, arrange one of you to write down the ideas.

- Explain that you are creating an idea festoon by weaving the ideas into each other. Everything is allowed, as long as you play with thoughts and ideas.

- The first person comes up with an idea, the next person says "yes and" and builds on the ideas.

- Everybody adds to the idea by literally saying "yes and". Thus it continues until there is no more ideas to be added to the original idea.

- The next person starts a new idea and everyone adds to it.

- When you are finished or out of time, you look at all the different ideas and pick the best ones.