Halloween is one of my favourite times of the year! It’s also one of my absolute favourite creative exercises to use in a brainstorming session.
A lot has been written about solving a problem or coming up with a new idea by changing your perspective. I agree that it is a powerful approach to creative problem solving.
I have attended sessions where you are asked to look at a challenge from the perspective of a famous person, like a movie star, prime minister, or an author. In theory this sounds like a great approach, except that I don’t know how it feels to be a movie star, a prime minister or an author!
I do, however, know how it feels to crawl inside one of the characters that I dressed up as at Halloween! So, I created a new creative exercise for brainstorming based on our favourite childhood Halloween costumes.
Guests are asked in advance to bring in a couple of items that they could use during the session to replicate their favourite Halloween costume from a very young age.
When the guests get into character, we then ask them to look for new ideas from the perspective of their character – think clown, pirate, cowboy, angel or ghost!
The guests love it because it’s both easy and fun to remember how it feels to become that character! As crazy as this all sounds, it’s not only a ton of fun, but it also produces an incredible amount of very creative ideas because it forces a different perspective.
Follow along with Barefoot Brainstorming for more creative problem solving ideas
For more brainstorming tips and creative thinking hacks, be sure to follow Barefoot Brainstorming on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.
