Ideas for one question

Say what the room will leave with and point to the three steps on the wall. Then ask: "In one sentence: what do you need from the next ninety minutes?" Take answers in any order, not round the circle. If someone passes, move on.

Rounds: four rounds of five minutes

Split the room into two groups of six (or close to it), each around its own table. Every sheet has the question at the top and a grid three columns wide. "Write three ideas in the top row. In five minutes you pass the sheet to your right and add three more, building on what's there or going somewhere new. No talking." Run four rounds of five minutes. When the last round ends, everyone circles the two strongest ideas on the sheet in front of them and copies each onto a sticky note.

The full 6-3-5 Brainwriting exercise

Sparked notes: up to two each after reading the wall

Everyone puts their two notes on the wall and reads the whole wall in silence. Then sort it: "Move notes that are the same idea, or the same kind of idea, next to each other. Anyone can move anything." Give each cluster a short label on a different-coloured note. Two notes that say the same thing go one on top of the other, so the wall shows each idea once.

In the 90 also: Sparked notes: after reading, and before sorting, everyone adds up to two new ideas the wall gave them. Silent, three minutes.

The full Post-Up exercise

Notes each person places: three

Draw a two-by-two on the wall: Originality across the bottom, from ordinary to new, and Ease up the side, from hard to easy. Label the corners: Now (ordinary and easy), How (new and hard), Wow (new and easy). "Take three from the wall, ideas you care about, and place each where you think it belongs. In silence." After that, anyone can move any note once; a note that gets moved twice is worth a conversation, so talk those through. The ideas in Wow go forward, and anything in How that the room won't let go of becomes a question for later.

The full How-Now-Wow exercise

Each result the room produced needs an owner. The owner writes "I will [what] by [when]" on a card, reads it out and sticks it under the result. Only owners speak. If a result has no owner, say so: "Nobody owns this yet." Write that on the wall too, so it leaves the room as an open item rather than a quiet gap.

In the 90 also: Ask each owner one question: "What could stop this?" One sentence back. If the answer is another person, that person is in the commitment too.