Free Brains

You can use the Think Wrong Drills individually—or in bunches—when you want to depart from the predictable solution path.

Click on the USE DRILL button to access the instructions, videos, posters, and facilitation tips that will help you run the drill you selected like a pro.

Try one at your next meeting or when you’re feeling stuck.

Use Be Bold Drills when you want to set your aspirations high, to make a meaningful difference, question the way things are, and explore how things might ideally be

Deflection Point:

Use when you want to create a bold path that deflects from the status quo—shifting from the way things are to how they might be.

Outcomes

• Aspirations for a future state

• Shared understanding and enthusiasm for change

Moonshot

Use when you need to escape the biases, orthodoxies, and assumptions that define the status quo—and that limit the impact you might have.

Outcomes

• Elevated impact

• Shared vision of impact

• Aspirational goals

• Reasons to believe

Challenge the Challenge

Use when you want to encourage, build, and grow a culture that questions the way things are.

Outcomes

• Multiple entry points for addressing a challenge or opportunity that matters to you and your people

• Identification of the people that you wish to serve

Use Get Out Drills when you want to invite design serendipity, to shift into an attentive and receptive mindset allowing the let people and places to inspire solutions and inform your decision making.

The 3x3x3 Drill

Use to break through preconceptions, elitism, and status that restrict what might be considered.

Outcomes

• Serendipitous connections, observations, and insights

• Team bonding and boldness

The That’s Odd Drill

Use when you need to start solving from an entirely new place.

Outcomes

• Random starting places

• Serendipitous connections, observations and insights

• Team bonding and boldness

The Silent Walk Drill

Use when you want thoughtful reflections on ideas, activities, conversations, emerging solutions, and progress.

Outcomes

• Reflection, inspiration, and enriched understanding of opportunity and the potential for impact

Use Let Go Drills when you want to overcome the assumptions, biases, and orthodoxies that limit what might be possible and increase the number of ideas available for further exploration, development, and consideration.

Random Word

Use when you need to let go of your problem solving orthodoxies to generate convention-defying solutions.

Outcomes

• A portfolio of unexpected, inconceivable solutions, ready for quick evaluation and further exploration

Brand Takeover

Use when perceptions of what is—and is not—possible for your organization are holding you back.

Outcomes

• Convention bending ideas freed from internal assumptions, orthodoxies, and biases

MacGyver

Use when you want to make clever, practical, and original use of existing resources.

Outcomes

• Compelling hacks of existing resources and solutions that might prove easier to execute

Use Make Stuff Drills when you want to gain a deeper understanding and shift from high-level abstract thinking and debate to more concrete and promising solutions.

The Big Yes!

Use when you want to imagine new elements, experiences, and processes that might make your solution even more compelling, powerful, and real.

Outcomes

• More robust concepts for ingenious solutions 

• New ideas

Name It

Use when you want to craft stories for your emerging solutions and better understand how they might work and how people might experience them.

Outcomes

• Early use scenarios 

• Ability to share and learn from—and be inspired by—others

In a Box Drill

Use when you want a clear, compelling, and concise presentation of your emerging solutions.

Outcomes

• Clear and compelling language for your emerging solutions.

• Identification of adjacent strengths to build on

• Rough models of the product, services, processes, experiences, etc.

Use Bet Small Drills to test critical assumptions, increase certainty, and make smarter decisions about where to invest your time and resources.

$100 VC Fund

Use when you want to focus on what matters most and what might make the biggest difference.

Outcomes

• Focus

• Prioritization 

• Alignment with what matters most

• Insight into how teammates think about priorities

Do It on Monday

Use when you need to quickly gain insights to accelerate development of your solutions. Serendipitous connections, observations, and insights.

Outcomes

• Portfolio of small bets 

• Clarity about which questions need to be answered first 

• A low risk-path forward

• Increased probability of insights that might lead to breakthrough

Learn From Investment

Use when you want to place a higher value on discovering new things than being right.

Outcomes

• Design, development, and implementation priorities 

• Insight into the most fruitful small bets 

• Freedom from being right

Use Move Fast Drills to tap into the power of the collective wisdom of others to move your new way of doing things into the world faster.

Asset Jam

Use when you want to make the most out of resources already available to you.

Outcomes

• Inventory of resources with which to solve 

• Recognition that there is much to work with

Impact x Doability

Use when you need to prioritize ideas for high impact.

Outcomes

• Definition of high impact

• Definition of what makes a solution doable

• Reduced set of high-potential ideas

SASU

Use when you want to learn from others about how your solution might make even more of a difference.

Outcomes

• Active listening

• Valuable feedback from peers