Adapt-A-Role

Adapt-A-Role

The aim is to promote the ability to empathize with users or recipients.

1. The teacher outlines the task to the students:

• As Polman and Emich (2011) state, decisions made by others are more creative than decisions made by ourselves. 
• This activity, developed by Gumula (2020), proposes a brief exercise before the typical ‘adapt-a-role’ technique used in the ideation phase of Design Thinking.

2. The students should choose any superhero, comic character, celebrity, scientists, famous athlete etc.
3. The students imagine their persona solving the issue, problem or task and take notes of any important information or steps identified.
4. The students then solve their issue, problem or task,
5. The teacher discusses this approach to solving problems with the students.

The activity could be done using online tools such as Padlet, virtual whiteboard and breakout rooms in Teams/Zoom.

Inspired by: Gumula, J. (2020). Creativity training in organizations: a ready-to-implement concept. Gruppe. Interaktion. Organisation. Zeitschrift für Angewandte Organisationspsychologie (GIO), 51, 95-102.
Polman, E., & Emich, K. J. (2011). Decisions for others are more creative than decisions for the self.
Personality & Social Psychology Bulletin, 37 (4) pp. 492-5601.
https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167211398362v