Metaphor Ball

“Designers and improvisers enhance their collaborative partnerships by building on the ideas of others and being open to unexpected possibilities to create new combinations of ideas not previously considered.”

Gerber, Elizabeth. “Using Improvisation to Enhance the Effectiveness of Brainstorming.” Proceedings of the 27th International Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems - CHI 09, 2009.

Definition

Metaphor ball is a fun group brainstorming technique.

Type

Design technique

Context

Co-design

Procedure and Use Case

There can be a plethora of variations to this technique, so feel free to add your own creative twist. Metaphor ball is my version of the popular improvisation activity “Yes, let’s.”

To start the game of metaphor ball, have the party stand in a circle. The group then picks any imaginary topic such as cooking, planning a party, or spending a day at the beach. The first player makes an initial suggestion, such as “Let’s bake a cake” and then throws the ball to someone else in the group. Whoever catches the ball then responds with a follow-up suggestion such as, “Yes, let’s bake a cake, and use chocolate frosting.” Players continue to pass the ball to each other building on the previous person’s idea each time. The idea is to generate new ideas by withholding judgment to other people’s suggestions.

Data Analysis

Metaphor ball can be used as a team building activity, a way to warm people up at the start of a meeting, or as a brainstorming method. For designers, metaphor ball can be used as a fun and interactive way to generate new product ideas. It can help overcome our biases and limited mental models by making people consider aspects they hadn’t thought of before. The ideas generated can be created into a diagram which paints a picture of the design space.