I had a Swim Plan; the idea worked on several levels.

As a professional swimming coach (squads to Regional & National Standard) I am used to planning many hours or ‘activity’ that in some cases operate within tolerances of PB+/- 5 seconds. i.e. within 5 seconds of their ‘Personal Best Time’. With this exercise I built in +/- 5 minutes with a set of exercises where none lasted longer than 15 minutes.

For the fun of it the group were shown how to scull in a couple of minutes at the start, then how to flutter kick at the end.

I doubt this used up more than 90 seconds in total of a 90 minute CPS workshop.

There were several formal CPS techniques, two quite physical the others more cerebral.

1. Samurai, Mother-in-law, Tiger
2. Human Sculpture
3. Problem Definition
4. Help/Hinder
5. Problem Review
6. Time Line
7. Advantages, Limites & Unique Qualities

There diverge/converge pattern was followed, though I am glad I came across the idea of ‘clustering’ as this better represented an intermediary phase that occured more than once.

It worked.

I am looking at where to go next with these as being someone who clearly likes being on their feet, directing and coaching (I have directed well over 150 training & information videos in my career, often with actors or large teams) I rather took to the unscripted, guided improvisation that is the lot of the facilitator.

Last Saturday I was a Wembley Arena for the induction of some 10,000 of us ‘Gamesmakers’.

Now that would be a group to facilitate!

REFERENCE

Ackoff, R. “Systems, Messes and Interactive Planning” Portions of Chapters 1 and 2 of Redesigning the Future. New York/London, 1974.

App. I (2011) B822 Tutorial 21 Jan 2012 Guilford

Henry, J (2010) Creative Techniques Library

Henry, J with Martin, J., Bell., R and the B822 Course Team(2010) Book 2 Managing Problems Creatively

Kirton, M.J. (1987) ‘Adaptors and Innovators. Cognitive Style and Personality’. In S.G. Isaksen (ed.), Frontiers of Creativity Research, Buffalo: Bearly Ltd.

Osborn, A.F. (1993) Applied Imagination, Principles and Procedures of Creative Problem Solving (3^rd revised edn, 1^st edn 1953). Creative Education Foundation Press, Buffalo.

Ritchey, T; (2007) Wicked Problems: Structuring Social Messes with Morphological Analysis, Swedish Morphological Society, last revised 7 November 2007.

Rittel, H (1972) ‘On the planning crisis: systems analysis of the “First and second generations”, Bedriftsokonomen, No. 8, pp. 390-6.

Tassoul, M & Buijs, J (2007) Clustering: An Essential Step from Diverging to Converging. Creativity and Innovation Management. Vol. 16, Number 1.

Wherret, R (2011) B822 Residential School 12^th January 2011, Marriott Hotel, Heathrow.