Download DIY exercise: The 9 dots: Learn, how to generate many and wild ideas

DIY exercise: The 9 dots

Know the path to many more and wilder ideas

Here is the exercise with 'The 9 dots', which is a classic, lateral brain exercise. Introduce your participants to the exercise and ask them to connect all 9 dots without lifting their pen from the paper and using 4 or fewer straight lines.

Time: 11 minutes for the presentation and the exercise itself plus 30 minutes examining how solutions were reached.
Materials: 1 handout for each group of 3 participants (sitting or standing).
Purpose: To encourage participants to become good at solving a task and at the same time discover that there are often more than one possible answer to a problem. 

Some trainers know about the many solutions. But it is best not to spread your knowledge of these solutions. Your participants do not need to know the solutions. They need to learn how to work together on more and wilder solutions. Therefore, this workshop recipe is about how to find the most.