Juice up your neural pathways before brainstorming or problem-solving, and have a few belly laughs. Best for groups of three or more.

1. Introduce the topic you'll be brainstorming about or the problem you'll be trying to solve. 

2. Ask the group to write down their worst ideas using a whiteboard or butcher paper—or, for remote teams, a digital collaboration tool.

3. After a few minutes, step back and take 'em all in (we dare you not to fall on the floor laughing!).

4. (Optional) Ask each person to share their favorite worst idea and why it stood out to them. 

This exercise helps teams resist the (often strong) temptation to self-censor when real problem-solving begins. After you’ve heard the worst ideas and flushed them out of your system, you can proceed with your regularly scheduled brainstorming.

Kickstart creative thinking and see different thought processes in action. Best for large groups of 20 or more.

1. Each person writes a surprising fact about themselves on an index card and drops their cards into a bag, box, or hat.

2. Each person chooses a card at random from the bag.

3. Now the fun begins. Participants stand up and mingle, with the goal of finding cards that align with a theme or are of a similar type. Keep an open mind when thinking about what constitutes the common thread between cards. The thread could be daredevil tendencies, origin stories, music, or anything else. There's no limit to how big each grouping can be, but you must find groupings that accommodate all the cards — nobody gets left out.

4. Each group reads their cards and shares the theme they identified.

5. (Optional) Invite everyone to stand up and re-sort themselves. Some groupings will likely stay the same, while others might be dramatically different.

Notice how the point of the exercise was not to figure out which fact goes with which person? That's on purpose. In fact, remember to let participants know this at the beginning of the exercise in order to stave off any anxieties.

Warm up for a day of listening with this non-verbal activity. Best for groups of 10 or more.

1. Divide into teams of five to eight people. 

2. Ask one team to come to the front of the room and stand in a line, one behind the other, all facing the same direction (it's important no one can see the person standing behind them). 

3. Show the person at the back of the line a word to act out silently, but don't have them do so just yet. Show the word to the audience as well so they know what's up, but make sure nobody else in the line sees it.

4. When the person at the back of the line is ready, they tap the shoulder of the person standing in front of them. That person turns around and faces the person who knows the word.

5. The actor pantomimes the word as best they can two or three times so the person watching can really absorb and memorize the movements. Do not let anyone say the word being acted out!

6. The person watching then becomes the actor – they tap the person in front of them and repeat the pantomime as best they can. (You see where this is going, right?)

7. Repeat steps four to six until everyone in the line has seen the pantomime.

8. Laugh as the pantomime morphs dramatically from the original. 

9. The person at the front of the line tries to guess the original word. If they get it right, the team scores a point. It’s up to you how strict you want to be!

Make sure each team gets a chance to act. You can continue as long as you like. Here are some example words your teams can act out: mermaid, lawn sprinkler, firefighter, Gollum, light bulb, snow shovel, jet ski, surfer, walkie-talkie, or frying pan.

Trigger quick, unfiltered thinking before a brainstorming session with this fast-paced activity. Best for groups of five or more.

1. Circle up and choose a person to kick things off – we'll call them Person A.

2. Person A turns to the person next to them, person B, and names a category, like "types of sandwiches.”

3. Person B rattles off three things that fit into that category as fast as they can. No judgment and no self-censoring!

4. When they're done, the entire group claps and yells, "Three things!"

5. Go around the circle until everyone has had a chance to name a category and three things. 

The point isn't to make sure all things named fit the category perfectly, or to come up with the wittiest response. The point is to laugh and have fun. Let your brain relax so your neurons can fire quickly. Celebrate even the oddest contributions and you’ll set an anything-goes tone before diving into more cerebral, strategic activities.