Let's begin by acknowledging the elephant in the room: life's a bummer when you're drowning in constraints:
❌freshly cut budgets
❌limited help
❌time always running out faster than a melting ice cream cone on a summer day🍨☀️
But what if, for a fleeting moment, you could pretend none of that mattered?🦄✨
Enter the "It's Impossible" ideation exercise! 🦾
What is the 'It's Impossible' exercise? It works like this:
Step 1: Next time your team is meeting to solve a work challenge, carve out 10 minutes for them to think impossible first.
Step 2: Working solo or in small groups, have everyone imagine how they would solve the challenge if they lived in a world where you have:
✅the budget of a Bond villain
✅resources like a tech giant
✅time that bends to your will
✅a dream team that makes The Avengers look like amateurs.
It's so outrageously unrealistic that it's almost like planning your retirement on winning the lottery. But hey, you never know!
Step 3: Now that people’s imaginations have been opened up, get them working on realistic solutions inspired by the impossible.
Why 'It's Impossible' Brainstorming Works:
Now, you might be thinking, "Why on earth would I indulge in such a ridiculous exercise?" 🤔🤨😒🙄
Well, my friend, because it's liberating! By removing the shackles of reality ⛓️💥, you allow your brain to make connections🧩 it can’t while juggling all the limitations. Also, it’s just plain fun and innovation often sprouts from the seeds of crazy ideas🧠🌱. Remember the guy who thought it was possible to put wheels on luggage? We owe him big time.
Have Funware™ Ideator help you facilitate 'It's Impossible'
We designed 'It's Impossible' for the 15-30 minute short ideator session.
Step 0: If you haven't done so already, sign-up for Funware™ Ideator.
Step 1: When starting a Funware™ Ideator session, click "Use Short Exercises". Also, click “Enable Robot Mode” to enable AI to ideate alongside you. Be sure to share the link with anyone you want to ideate with.
Step 2: When on the game wheel, instead of spinning the wheel to get a random exercise, click "It's Impossible" to select that specific exercise.
Step 3: Funware™ Ideator automatically prompts meeting participants to start thinking impossible and bringing those ideas back down to reality.
Step 4: Funware™ will pick different people to share their ideas at random and ensures all voices get heard, not just the loud extroverts like Devin and myself 🤭.
The next time you or your team need to come up with innovative solutions, try with using the 'It's Impossible' exercise. It has been a personal eye-opener for me, helping me unlock solves that I haven't considered before!