Blindspotting
Finding blind spots, der Unsympath
This is a creativity technique that reveals aspects that can easily slip your attention.
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This is a creativity technique that reveals aspects that can easily slip your attention.
Loading... What we like and what we don't like influences the way we think and the type of ideas we like. Why would we create an idea we don't like? This technique deliberately asks that question by empathically stepping into someone's mind we don't like at all. This gives us the chance to leave our standard paths of thinking. It is a good exercise
-if you are looking for new ideas in an area you are very familiar with
-if you keep coming up with the same ideas
-as an instrument to check weaknesses of your idea and possible problems you haven't thought about.
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Provide pen and paper and moderation cards.
Introduce the purpose of the exercise and define the topic/question you want to work on. (This guideline is a suggestion for reshaping and refining an existing idea. With a few changes you can also use it to create new ideas.)
Tell your participants/team you will guide them through a 3-step process. You can introduce the tasks step by step.
(2 Min) Think of a person who has all of the following characteristics:
-You know this person well
-You do not think it is a stupid person
-And you don't like this person at all :-(( !!
This person will be your blind spotter.
Make sure, everybody has a suitable person in mind and continue explaining step 2. It is helpful to write the questions of step 2 on a flipchart or give them to your group as a print. Prepare your participants that they will most likely feel quite a resistance when they think about this person an his/her suggestions. Remind them that it is a normal reaction and it is part of the game to allow this resistance to be there. The blind spotter person is a great helper. Encourage your participants to see them as a helper. And if it gets really bad what helps is deep breathing and saying a few words of forgiveness to yourself for your resistance and to the blindspotter for his annoying way of thinking/being.
(10-15 Min.): Imagine what this person would think about your idea/project:
1. At which point would this person start to criticize and jab into your idea/project? Which characteristics of your idea/project would this person consider to be weaknesses and misjudgements?
2. What would this person do in a completely different way? In what way would this person conceive the project?
Write down all the (counter) arguments of the blind spotter in such a way that someone else can read and understand them.
(20 Min.): Find yourself a partner with whom to go through the answers of step 2. Your partner presents to you the arguments of the blind spotter. You react to it: weigh whether real weaknesses have been addressed (in this case you explain to your partner how you are going to deal with them) or whether the criticism is unjustified (in this case you use arguments to counter them). Also look at the suggestions/new ideas from your blind spotters. Evaluate what is helpful and what is not.
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A simple way to get an overview of possible risks, and how to deal with them.
