Some alpha testers asked me when we will add more activities to Stormz in order to be able to organize more complex workshops. This is definitely something that we will do (starting with a cluster activity) but I would like to emphasis the fact that you can already facilitate advanced brainstorming sessions. Indeed, if an activity provides by design a specific way to orchestrate team interactions in real time, it leaves you, the facilitator, with the choice of rules and sequences.
For example, this morning, I was listening to an inspiring screencast by Paul Sloane, an expert facilitator talking about two advanced brainstorming techniques: similes and pass the parcel. As of December 2011, there is no activity in our Stormz library specifically designed to handle these techniques. Is that a problem? Absolutely not. Why? Because you can already leverage the Idea Blitz, $100 and Pass the Idea activities to implement these two techniques during a workshop.
Let me show you how with the similes technique.
The similes technique consists of 5 main steps (more explanations in the original screencast).
You may have noticed that this technique leverage lateral thinking in a smart way making it a good choice when you feel the team is being trapped into traditional ways of solving their problem.
And this is one way to facilitate it with Stormz.
First of all, you want to find good similes:
Then you will have to brainstorm about the simile problem, this can be done in many ways, for example:
Then you have to get back to real-life:
Here we are, we have managed to implement an advanced technique by using only the three basic Stormz activities. This is possible because you can add your own rules and find smart sequences that enable to fosters the group creativity.
And you, do you have smart uses that you would like to share with us?