Market of Ideas

Description of the tool

Description:
1st step:
Divide the participants in small groups (3-6 persons in each group) and hand out a plain sheet (or hand out the attached sheet) and a pencil to all of them. The purpose is to give every one 3 minutes to fill in 3 ideas they have about creating new ideas (dependent on the topic). After 3 minutes they pass on their sheet to the person on the left. That person writes down new ideas in the second row. You can develop further a thought that is already on the sheet or you can write down new ideas. We repeat this action in a circle until the first person gets back his or her own paper.
2nd step:
Now each group gets scissors, glue and a big sheet of paper. They are required to cut their sheets with all the ideas on it into single pieces (every box-one piece) and afterwards group together related thoughts. Now give them enough time to filter out ideas that they want to combine and stick them in this combination on the big sheet. Beside the groups of ideas they should add a short written description of how these ideas can make up a new project in relationship to the topic of the brainstorming activity.

ATTENTION!
With this method it is important to get as many ideas as possible in a quite short time. If there is for example a group with 6 members, the group will get 108 ideas in the end all together! Now take care that they have enough time to select the ideas that are the most innovative ones and encourage them to combine them not only with ideas which are obviously related to it, but also something totally new and different to get new perspectives.