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First published in Polish by Jędrzej Szynkowski

Although creativity may primarily be associated with freedom and the unrestrained generation of ideas, well-planned creativity training requires a framework for action. How to guide a group step by step through subsequent activities? One solution may be the five-step method.

The five-step method, described by Agnieszka Biela in her book "Creativity Training. How to stimulate creative thinking"^[1], is a framework for planning group activities (or individual sessions – it also works well here). What is more, you will ensure that you support the various skills associated with creative thinking and that the level of difficulty of the subsequent tasks gradually increases.

^{Zastanawiasz się, jak zaplanować trening twórczości? Skorzystaj z metody pięciu kroków! (archiwum własne, fot. Łukasz Dobiński).}

The method consists of five steps: breaking down barriers – a new perspective – building associations – creative transformations – problem solving.

The first step is a kind of creative warm-up. The next three use tasks related to the key creative thinking skills of exploration, combination, and transformation. The latter uses more complex problem-solving methods.

In this text, I present a brief description of each step and suggest specific exercises that you can use during the session.

Step 1. Breaking down barriers

It is worth starting creativity training with simple exercises that will help the group get into the process. Quick warm-ups and tasks that use creativity-related abilities such as abstraction, metaphor creation, or breaking functional fixation (simplified – the ability to see different, including non-standard, uses for objects) work well here.

This stage aims to stimulate intellectual curiosity and encourage participation in training, gradually increasing the difficulty level of subsequent tasks.

An example of an exercise you can use is Superpowers. This exercise encourages abstract thinking and uses a sense of humor.

You are familiar with characters from Marvel or DC Comics. Each of them had abilities that were unavailable to the average person. Superman could fly, Wonder Woman had enormous strength, Flash moved at superhuman speed, and Storm could control the weather.

Now imagine... the least useful superpowers. The group's task is to create a list of pseudo-abilities that could distinguish the heroes and heroines.

In the workshops I conducted, the following appeared, among others: "semi-transparency", "5% levitation", "the ability to predict the past" and "ultra-sleepiness".

Share your suggestions in the comments!

Step 2. A new perspective

At this stage of the training, there are tasks related to exploring and redefining the problem. It will be useful to have the ability to think critically, which Krzysztof Szmidt equates with a constant readiness to be surprised, a desire to learn and explore new things, seek out latest problems, and formulate and reformulate questions in an innovative way ^[2].

And it was in the professor's rich collection of exercises that I found a suggestion that you can use in your classes.

Questions for the fairy tale (or The Martian) is a task inspired by the works of Eric Berne, the creator of transactional analysis ^[3]. Divide the participants in the training into small teams (3-4 people). Each of them is the crew of a spaceship that has landed on Earth. They are unfamiliar with the customs here; they know nothing about the cultural context or symbolism. For the first time, they have come across a fairy tale. – I do not know what to expect from aliens. The more famous the story, the better.

The more well-known the story, the better. Little Red Riding Hood, Puss in Boots, Sleeping Beauty, The Three Little Pigs or Hansel and Gretel – any of these options are an excellent choice. All teams can work on the same story, or you can ask each group to analyse a different fairy tale.

The task is simple – it consists of creating the longest possible list of questions that might occur to aliens after reading the fairy tale. The more insightful and accurate the questions, the better.

Here are a few questions about Cinderella that I heard during the workshop:

• What are the most popular vegetables on Earth, apart from pumpkins, used to make vehicles?
• Why does the male Earthling look for a partner with the help of shoes? Do Earthlings have trouble distinguishing faces?
• Why did the shoe only fit one foot? Do all female Earthlings have such different foot sizes that they need to have shoes made especially for them?
• Are all female names on Earth derived from appearance/clothing? (Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, Thumbelina, Snow White)?

^{Pytania do bajki, w którym grupa przyjmuje perspektywę kosmitów, to jeden ze sposobów na ćwiczenie myślenia pytajnego (grafika wygenerowana przez Chat GPT).}

Step 3. Building associations

The third of the five steps uses exercises based on combinatorial thinking. The aim here is to support participants' ability to connect (often distant) ideas.

At this stage, I like to use Trigrams. The task is to find a word that connects three other words. For example, for the set: "sidewalk– gramophone – block", the common point will be "plate". We walk on sidewalk plates, play plates on gramophones, and most of the blocks built in Poland in the 20th century were made of so-called concrete plates.

Try to find words that connect the following trigrams:

• tooth – tree – queen;
• airplane – trip – television;
• telephone – storage compartment – microorganism.

Questions for a fairy tale in which the group takes the perspective of aliens is one way to practise questioning thinking (graphic generated by Chat GPT).

Step 4. Creative transformations

The penultimate stage involves tasks related to transformational thinking. Briefly: you choose an object, process or situation. You focus on its properties, select one or more of them and change them. The result is something new.

You can suggest simple drawing exercises to the group. One idea is to sketch new products based on geometric shapes. If you are concerned that participants will not want to sketch, try other options. For example, ask them to suggest a list of improvements to specific objects (smartphones, oven gloves, wallets – anything that comes to mind).

I will share with you a tool that I learned about at one of the EuroPeers Network meetings. Darek Redlicki suggested it as an integration exercise, and the game itself was so engaging that I quickly incorporated it into my creativity training sessions. PowerPoint karaoke works great as an introduction to transformative thinking, although you can also use it successfully in workshops on public speaking. What is it all about? 

The task is simple. One person stands in the middle and must give a short presentation on a randomly selected topic. They have few dozen seconds for each of the 10 slides. The problem is... they have no idea what images will constitute the background for their story. They must improvise and change their narrative on the fly, remembering not to lose the main thread and to connect the slides into a meaningful narrative.

HERE you will find a random slide generator.

Step 5. Troubleshooting

The five-step method concludes with a session during which the group learns about tools, techniques and heuristic methods for solving specific problems.

The most common choice is to resort to classic brainstorming. It is worth using its variations (see the text in which Barbara Habrych introduces three lesser-known variants). You can also use SCAMPER, thinking hats, synectics or morphological analysis. Each of these options deserves a separate text – I will write about them in future articles on EPALE.

Conclusion

The five-step method described by Agnieszka Biela will help you plan your creativity training in a clear and intuitive way. By considering different groups of tasks, it facilitates the development of creative thinking at several levels of difficulty and in relation to the basic skills with which it is associated.

Jędrzej Szynkowski - coach, psychologist and Design Thinking moderator. He likes to say that he helps solve problems creatively. Since 2013, he has been creating and implementing training projects for businesses, non-governmental organisations, universities and local governments. He primarily trains in Design Thinking and creative problem-solving techniques. In addition, he advises on how to use LinkedIn, conducts train-the-trainer courses and supports team effectiveness as a FRIS® trainer. 

Sources:

[1] Agnieszka Biela. Trening kreatywności. Jak pobudzić twórcze myślenie. Wydawnictwo Samo Sedno, Warszawa 2015.

[2] Krzysztof Szmidt. Trening kreatywności. Podręcznik dla pedagogów, psychologów i trenerów grupowych. Wydawnictwo Helion, Gliwice 2013, s. 64.

[3] Tamże, s. 77-78.