Order Please

By: Calvin Bacon

Overview: Understanding ideas and creativity requires the understanding of possible relationships. This exercise helps participants understand how the arrangement of items may make a difference.

Purpose: This tool gives people practice in identifying order. The fact that each person is likely to find a different order makes the exercise interesting.

Participants: From five to twenty five

Materials: Chart pad and markers.

Time: 15 minutes

Procedure:

• Write the following key words on a chart pad: Cloud, Wall, Ocean, Flute, Trailer.
• Ask each participant to place each of the key words in order.
• Participant may ask how the key words should be sorted, but tell them they must decide the basis of the order.
• Ask each person to be able to explain the reasoning for the order they chose.
• Call on participant, and ask them to give their order and their reasons.

Debrief: Were all the orders reasonable? Why were some more reasonable than others? Is it possible to have more than one order? This debrief should help participants see that there are more than one way to develop a logical order and that the order may lead to an innovative idea.