Workshop 11: Enhancing Team Creativity Workshop
-3 Minute Read
Welcome to our Organisational Excellence Workshop Series. This series seeks to provide a launch pad for building professional skills and organisational success. Each workshop provides a jumping-off point for a different theme, exploring innovative strategies and practical exercises to enhance work and team dynamics. See more in the series here: https://blog.hptbydts.com/organisational-excellence-workshop-series
The outline below provides a template set of activities to facilitate the Enhancing Team Creativity Workshop. Use this as a base to customise and build a relevant workshop for your specific audience and needs.
The objective of this workshop is to stimulate creativity and foster an environment of innovation within teams through practical and interactive exercises.
Full-Day Workshop (8 hours)
Materials Needed:
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- Materials for brainstorming and creative exercises (e.g., whiteboards, markers, paper).
- Resources or tools for divergent thinking techniques.
- Challenge or problem statements for team exercises.
- Templates or guides for idea development and implementation planning.
- Feedback forms.
Facilitator's Note:
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- Create a supportive and stimulating environment that encourages risk-taking and open-mindedness.
- Be prepared to guide and inspire teams, especially when they encounter creative blocks.
- Focus on translating creative ideas into practical, actionable plans.
1. Creativity Unleashed
An icebreaker session focused on liberating creative thinking through unstructured, fun activities.
Desired Outcome:
To break down barriers to creative thinking and energise participants. This activity cultivates a relaxed, open environment, stimulating creative thinking and diminishing barriers to innovation.
Steps:
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- Engage participants in activities like improvisation games, free drawing, or storytelling. For example, designing a team logo or motto or the One Word at a Time story game (where the group creates a story by adding one word per person per turn).
- Encourage spontaneous and imaginative responses.
- Debrief to discuss the experience and how it felt to engage in unrestricted creative expression.
- Engage participants in activities like improvisation games, free drawing, or storytelling. For example, designing a team logo or motto or the One Word at a Time story game (where the group creates a story by adding one word per person per turn).
Potential Challenges:
Hesitancy or self-consciousness among participants. To help overcome this, encourage a non-judgmental, playful environment to foster participation.
2. Divergent Thinking Session
Exercises focused on developing divergent thinking skills, essential for creative problem-solving.
Desired Outcome:
To expand the participants' ability to generate multiple ideas and explore various solutions. This activity emphasises divergent thinking, a cornerstone of creativity, enabling wide-ranging possibilities.
Steps:
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- Introduce the concept of divergent thinking.
- Conduct exercises like brainstorming sessions, mind mapping, or SCAMPER techniques.
- Facilitate group discussions on the value of exploring diverse ideas and approaches.
Potential Challenges:
Converging on solutions too quickly. To help overcome this, emphasise the importance of exploring a wide array of ideas without immediate judgment.
3. Creative Collaboration Challenge
A team-based challenge that requires collaborative creative thinking to solve a problem or create something novel.
Desired Outcome:
To enhance teamwork in creative endeavours and demonstrate the value of collaborative innovation. This activity promotes collective creativity, teaching teams to build on each other's ideas.
Steps:
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- Present a challenge or problem that requires a creative solution.
- Teams work together to devise innovative solutions or create a product.
- Each team presents their solution or product, followed by group reflection on the creative process.
Potential Challenges:
Dominance of certain team members. To help overcome this, encourage equal participation and validate all contributions.
4. Creative Constraints
Working on tasks or projects with specific constraints to stimulate creative problem-solving.
Desired Outcome:
To show how limitations can actually enhance creativity rather than hinder it. This activity demonstrates how constraints can ignite creativity and foster innovative thinking.
Steps:
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- Assign creative tasks with specific limitations (e.g., limited resources, time constraints).
- Teams work to achieve objectives within these constraints.
- Discuss how constraints influenced the creative process and outcomes.
Potential Challenges:
Frustration or feeling limited by constraints. To help overcome this, frame constraints as opportunities rather than obstacles.
5. Idea Incubator
A session for developing and refining ideas generated during the workshop.
Desired Outcome:
To take initial ideas and develop them into more polished, practical concepts. This activity moves from ideation to creating actionable plans, crucial in the innovation process.
Steps:
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- Teams select their most promising ideas from earlier activities.
- Guide them through a process of refinement, considering feasibility and impact.
- Teams present their refined ideas for group feedback.
Potential Challenges:
Over-attachment to original ideas. To help overcome this, encourage openness to feedback and adaptation.
6. Implementing Creative Ideas
Planning how to implement the creative ideas generated in the workshop within their teams or organisations.
Desired Outcome:
To develop actionable plans for bringing creative ideas to fruition in the real world. This activity ensures the creative process results in practical outcomes, moving beyond theory.
Steps:
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- Discuss the steps needed to turn creative ideas into reality, including resource allocation, timelines, and potential challenges.
- Teams create implementation plans for their ideas.
- Share and critique plans with the larger group for refinement.
Potential Challenges:
Creating realistic and achievable implementation plans. To help overcome this, offer guidance on practical aspects of project planning.
7. Workshop Debrief & Feedback Session
Gathering participant feedback and summarising key workshop learnings.
Desired Outcome:
To reinforce key concepts and gather insights for continuous improvement. This activity helps to ensure an understanding of the workshop content and provides insights for enhancing future workshops.
Steps:
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- Open discussion for participants to share their thoughts on the workshop.
- Summarise key concepts and learnings.
- Collect written feedback for future workshop enhancements.
Potential Challenges:
Limited participant engagement in providing feedback. To help overcome this, encourage honest and constructive feedback to improve future workshops.
Thank you for joining us in this edition of the 'Organisational Excellence Workshop Series'. We hope the insights and strategies from the Enhancing Team Creativity Session workshop have inspired you and provided a valuable tool to kick-start and customise your own workshop. Remember, each workshop in this series is a step towards enhancing and enriching your organisational culture. Stay tuned for our next edition, where we will explore another vital aspect of professional development, continuing our journey of learning and growth. Until then, we encourage you to implement what you've learned and share your experiences with your peers.
Trevor O'Sullivan
General Manager. Since the early 2000s, Trevor has worked with thousands of Talent Management professionals to develop and apply assessment-based talent management solutions for selecting, developing and managing people. Trevor is an active member of the TTI Success Insights (TTISI) Global Advisory Council, contributes to TTISI product development and is a regular presenter at TTISI-R3. He is honoured to have received multiple Blue Diamond Awards and, more recently, the Bill Brooks Impact Award recognising his contributions to the TTISI global network.
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