- Divide everyone into groups of five to eight.
- Each participant gets a stack of index cards or index card-size sticky notes. The problem statement is written visibly on a board.
- Each person writes one idea on a card and places it on his right side.
- When a participant runs out of ideas, they pick a card from the pile on their left and try to add to it. If they can add to the idea, they write it on a new card, attach the two cards together, and move both cards to the pile on the right.
- If they can’t do anything with that card, they move it to the pile on the right and retrieve another card from their left.
- A moderator keeps the cards circulating.
- The process is complete at end of pre-determined time (e.g., 30 minutes).
- The last step is to sort the ideas using a clustering method.
Reading Now
The Pin Card Method