Once upon a time …

⦿ Creativity, Brainstorming, Thinking Outside the Box, Team Building

Build a story together that is creatively linked to a topic of your own or is completely made up.
An excellent exercise to loosen the creative muscles – for example as a starting point of a business brainstorming session.

Getting to know, understand and confirm each other’s creativity works out great as teambuilding.
Everyone makes up their own associations! This Online Energizer helps you to be able to connect to each other’s ideas.
Complete the story together.

Intro: Start with a first sentence of your team’s choice and divide up the narrator order. Digitally, you can give everyone a number on the screen as an extra hint.

Possible starting sentences:

• For complete freedom
  There once was a ….
• For an imaginary project
  About […] we closed [activity x], and then suddenly we got the message that …
• For a fun inventory of the behavior of your team under certain circumstances
  We are going to [line dancing, kite flying shuffleboard, anything!] and for that reason I imagine that …
  …but of course there are other ideas, what can you [point to someone] imagine doing…?
  
• For a literary session
  The general stayed long in the wine cellar that morning…. (From Embers by Sándor Márai)
• For some extra tension
  ”Quick, get under the table,’ she hissed. 
  ‘The letter came a month after he was supposed to have gotten out of the army.’
  ‘She wished she hadn’t left her diary on the train.’
  ‘We men,’ the man said, ‘feel these things differently.’
  When Gregor woke up one morning, he had turned into a civil servant.
  

Tips:

• Shared screen – not only the narrator, but the listeners are in the picture as well- let yourself be influenced by their reactions
  
• Let someone write down words and hold up a paper at any point- you are obliged to continue with that word
  
• Let someone make a drawing – you have to go on with what you see in it (compare it to the Rorschach test)
• Let someone make facial or hand gestures as hints – this makes the game even more interactive, wild and free
  
• Let someone write down the story; a nice reminder for later!

Alternatives:

• Have the narrator pass the word to someone to a person of his/hers choice
• The sentences should rhyme – ideal for the Santa Claus season. (We have a  Santa Claus who can lead your session and, if you behave well, join in too!)
  
• A particular banned word or topic that should never be mentioned – for example, the name of the competitor or even the boss! (After all, the point of the game is to find solutions yourself)
• To add a competition element to the session, a participant can be “finished” if they manage to put nothing down for x-number of seconds. Who is the best storyteller?
• Need help? Get guided during a workshop by our Storytelling expert Janneke.