Speed matters in this process, so record these games on audio tape. Another version is to use one of those magnetic poetry kits. Give people the kits and let them go to work. Also, you can mind-map in groups. Or gather a bunch of great images on a projector and let your group play off them.
I mentioned this in my last article: you can use structured information sources in an unstructured way. Use the Oxford English Dictionary (really any dictionary will do, the OED just seems better.) Pick words at random and establish connections with your central ideas. Or use a Tarot deck, or the Taoist I-Ching. You used to be able to do this with fortune cookies but the message quality has gone downhill. Pick a passage from your favorite inspirational literature such as the Bible or Jonathan Livingston Seagull, and invent a connection to your central idea — see what new things come up.
Try attending a seminar when you need new ideas. The seminar need not even be on the subject of concern. Just being in the seminar room, removed from your controlled environment, can cause your conscious mind to let go a little — just enough for spontaneous ideas to creep to the surface and make themselves available. And for those of you who don’t – read some books. On anything. Reading books always stimulates random thinking if you let it. Remember to keep note cards and pens handy.
Bring in outside speakers or consultants to spout off their ideas. (I know this might seem like a shameless plug.) Or cross-over people from departments who normally don’t work together. That always gets the juices flowing. Take these mixed-up groups and do any of the above.
Try game playing — simple things like checkers, go fish, touch-tackle