Energizer: Inspiration Board

Groups will often want to keep their Inspiration Boards and post them in a prominent place.

An inspiration board is a quick and easy energizer that makes a great addition to both design thinking workshops and team building offsites.

Prepare a large sheet of paper with a title that says “Inspiration Board.” Have each participant write or draw something that inspires them on a sticky note. Consider providing our participants with a visual vocabulary to make drawing less intimidating. They can create as many stickies as they want. Ask them to post their stickies, and look at what inspires their colleagues. Ask the group what they saw in their colleagues’ sources of inspiration: were there any similarities? Surprises? Things they were reminded of that inspire them, too?

Inspiration boards are good ways to get participants accustomed to writing and drawing on stickies.

Inspiration boards can prime participants for creative thinking, appreciation, finding commonalities, building interpersonal relations, and finding sources of motivation. Inspiration boards are also a good way for participants to prepare other modalities involving drawing on stickies.

Inspiration boards can create opportunities for personal sharing.

Note: I like to give credit to whoever I learned about a modality from; in this case, I don’t know where I originally heard about inspiration boards. If you’ve seen this somewhere else, please let me know!