Ideas Centres are progressively being rolled out in towns and cities across the UK – see www.ideascentregroup.com for list of current locations.
Focusing on organisational transformation, an Ideas Centre provides a forum for regular practice and experiential learning of creativity techniques and facilitation along with a framework for embedding within member organisations. Members will have access to 6 half-day meetings each year, with 2 places per meeting for each member:
– Duration 3 hours each
– Introduce new creative problem solving techniques
– Develop in-house facilitators
– Provide a “naive” forum for “challenge solving” for member organisations
– Guest (inspirational) speakers to challenge and provoke the thought processes
Creativity workshops will introduce and explore a core toolkit of techniques, including:
Problem Exploration
– Boundary Examination
– Structured Questioning
– Multiple-Cause Analysis
Idea Generation
– Bionics
– Brainsketching
– Greetings Cards
– Reversal
– Superheroes
– Synectics
Highly hands-one, participants will be provided with experience to “go it alone” – understanding the principles that under-pin the techniques sufficiently to then introduce the techniques into their own organisations via in-house Creativity Clubs.
Facilitators will learn the principles of improvisation – “listen, yes, commit” – quite different from traditional facilitation skills, designed to challenge traditional thinking and promote the generation of new ideas.
Member organisations will be encouraged to establish in-house Creativity Clubs – meeting on a monthly basis in the first instance, providing a vehicle for the systematic introduction of provocative thinking. Meetings will last no more than 1 hour, involving 5 or 6 members of staff for each meeting –including Problem Owner and Facilitator.
