Name of the Exercise: Bad idea to Good idea

Contributed by:
Tina Seelig,
Executive Director, Stanford Technology Ventures Program
Stanford University, California, USA

Introduction:

“Bad idea to Good idea “is a creative exercise, which leads the participants through the idea
generation process, in a hands-on manner. It will also help you teach the most essential
entrepreneurial skill of ‘Recognizing Opportunity’ in a very light and humorous way.

This exercise also opens up the minds of the participants to the various ways in which creative
thinking can be learned.

Learning Objectives:

• Initiates creative thinking and an innovative approach

• Fosters an open, resourceful mindset
• Develops idea generation and opportunity recognition skills in participants

When to Use

This exercise can be used at the beginning of any course or workshop on entrepreneurship to
teach the concepts of ‘Idea Generation’ and ‘Opportunity Recognition’. Ideally, one may engage
the students in this exercise even before introducing them to the steps involved in the
entrepreneurial process.

This exercise can definitely be used to teach creativity and innovation. Most often courses on
creativity are aimed at enhancing the thought process of the participants and this exercise does
precisely that.

In addition, it can be used as a 'fun' activity during any entrepreneurship event or as a general
introduction to entrepreneurship, without being formally linked to any course.

The Exercise

1. Depending on strength of the class, form teams of four or six-member among the
participants.
2. The exercise is to be conducted in two parts - the first part will focus on idea generation
and the second part will focus on opportunity recognition.

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 Idea Generation
Instructions to students:
3. Ask each team to generate one really bad idea within the next 10 minutes. They may
generate a lot of ideas but at least one of them should be a really bad one (the worst idea
generated by a given team) is to be chosen.
4. The idea has to be crazy, funny, out of the world, absolutely impossible or completely
impractical; for example, advertising on footwear or a food chewing service.
5. At the end of the 10 mins, ask the teams to present their ideas to the class; you may
record them on the board as they are being presented.

Opportunity Recognition
6. Allot one idea to each team; please take care that you allot each team a different idea
than the one generated by them.
7. Give 20 minutes to each team to work on turning this really bad idea into a good business
opportunity.
8. Ask the teams to brain storm and prepare a 3-minute presentation on pursuing the
opportunity. Encourage them to present their ideas in a creative and innovative manner.
Power point slide presentations are not recommended as they may be time consuming
and may delay the activity.
9. At the end of the 20 mins, ask the students to make their presentations.
Time: 1 hour

Concluding the exercise:

You may debrief the students on how this exercise helps in understanding the process of idea
generation and opportunity recognition; the participants will be surprised at how they were
engaged in the process. There will be a lot of laughter and fun in the class when they discuss the
bad ideas they come up with.

Innovation will come into play as they attempt to recognize the opportunity in a seemingly bad
idea. You can point out to them that creativity is present in everyone and that it emerges when we
are challenged to exercise it. Encourage them to continue developing this creative mode of
thinking.

Follow up:
This exercise may be followed by a lecture on the concepts of idea generation and opportunity
recognition or one on creativity and innovation.

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