Disruptus with Names

Overview

The Why

Reinforced Values
Opportunity
Sound Judgment
Win-Win

Disruptus with Names is a spin-off of the activity Disruptus. This is an activity that demonstrates the importance of being Opportunity Obsessed, Innovating and properly Aligned Value Creation. In an ideal market, customers can choose not to do business with your company for any reason. That said, this activity puts the students in the position of knowing who their market is and properly aligning their innovation strategies with their market in order to create value for the customer, therefore also creating value for themselves.

Disruptus and Disruptus with Names can be repeated at any time throughout your school year. The more often you do innovation activities, the better. The benefit of Disruptus with Names is that it requires basically no materials – students are using their names to design their innovations.

Intro

• Students will be divided into groups of 3-4.
• Announce before sending students into breakout rooms that they are part of a Research & Development (R&D) Firm whose job is to bring innovative new products to market.
• Share with students that they will be divided into small teams and will need to accomplish the following:
  • Determine their team name. (This sets the foundation for ownership over their ideas and the outcomes of their work.)
  • Use scratch paper, virtual whiteboard, or drawing application to design their product. They will be sharing their design with the class.
  • Choose someone who will pitch their product to the customer.
• Ensure students know how to leave their breakout room and return back if they’re curious about asking the customer questions. If you feel more comfortable hopping from room to room during their ideation time, feel encouraged to do that instead.
  • Pro tip – For the first round or two, don’t prompt students to ask questions of you/the customer. Observe which students catch on to the importance of knowing the customer and reward accordingly with YE dollars/points during the debrief when the ‘ah-ha’ moments occur.

Social and Emotional Skills

1. Students are developing and maintaining healthy Relationship Skills throughout this activity as they are communicating with their peers in their group by exchanging ideas and criticism. Through the exchange of ideas, students are practicing reading and receiving body language and other non- verbal social cues.

Preparation

• Determine which platform you will use to share the activity with students.
• Review the activity guide.
• Ensure students have the materials they need to participate in the activity. Will they be using a virtual whiteboard or drawing application? Will they need scratch paper and a writing utensil?
• Assign students to groups of 3-4 if using a virtual platform that allows for breakout rooms.
  • If playing multiple rounds, be prepared to mix up the groups after each round.
• Decide who will be the “customer.”
• Decide how you will engage students in the debrief following the activity.

Directions

• Present to students that they will be designing a new product for you (the customer) by using the FIRST letter of their LAST name. For example, if your student’s name is Joe Smith, they will use the letter “S.” Repeat this as students will inevitably still use the wrong letter when ideating.
• Once they have identified their letter, share with students that they will next choose a noun or object starting with that same letter. For example, Smith begins with “S” and Joe chose “Skunk.”
• Once each student has chosen a noun, they will then ideate what kind of product they can create with their collective nouns. For example, Joe Smith chose skunk; Kathy Tooney chose tools, and Chad Corriher chose coffee. That group would ideate a product that involves skunks, tools, and coffee to meet your needs as the customer.
• Give students 5 minutes (or change this per your discretion) to develop/innovate their product.
• After 5 minutes, bring students back to the main virtual room.
• Each team will have 1 minute (or longer per your discretion) to pitch their product to the rest of the market.
  • Explain that there will be no Q&A for pitches.
• After each group has pitched, you (the customer) will choose a winning prototype. Consider not only their design but also how well it met your needs as the customer. Also, consider giving feedback about their quality of pitching. Did they make eye contact? Was the pitch engaging? Did they identify the problem and solution for the customer?
• Continue playing additional rounds and mixing up the groups if time allows.
• ProTip: In subsequent rounds, continue to innovate the game. Consider adapting to using the first letter of your first name instead of the last name, select (or have students choose) a different customer, etc. Be creative!

Debrief

Students can complete the debrief in many ways. Some options include on paper, in a group setting via any virtual call platform, or by recording their feedback using EdTech tools and sharing with their classmates.   

Possible Debriefing Questions – What you debrief should be determined by what you focus on while playing the game. For example: innovation and creative destruction, customer focus, marketing strategy, etc. This is also an appropriate time to reinforce the Foundational Values exhibited through the activity.

• What was difficult about innovating products you are familiar or unfamiliar with?
• What was your strategy for innovation? Did you have to pivot or change your strategy at any point?
• Who was your Market during this game? Depending on how you played, this might be classroom guests, the other students, etc.
  • Who asked the customer what they wanted?
  • What ways did you attempt to align the value that you created with their problems/needs?
• What was frustrating about this game? Why?
• Did you get any ideas for innovations from other teams?
  • Do you think companies do this?
  • Why is it important to consider intellectual property rights as you innovate?
• Did you use sound judgment by considering the best use of resources as you innovated your product?
• In what way did your team demonstrate cooperation in the innovation process? What did it look like? What did it feel like?
• In the process of innovating your idea, did you encourage all ideas (including wild ideas)?
  • What is creative destruction? How did this activity engage you in the process of creative destruction?
  • What are some examples of innovations that were a result of creative destruction?