Introduction

Action Collabs are design-thinking and discovery processes structured as small, facilitated groups used to model innovative methods for brainstorming and design. ISKME’s Action Collabs can be used for individual learning, an institution, or the education enterprise. Improv (the improvisational method of achieving cooperation) is interwoven into Action Collabs as a practice and reminder to suspend judgment and stay open to new ideas.

The Action Collabs design team is an accomplished group of professionals that included ISKME President and Founder Dr. Lisa Petrides, IDEO Designer Jonah Houston, and LifePlays Co-founder Chris Miller. Combining acumen in educational research and practices with global design expertise and the transformative power of improv, Action Collabs are dynamic experiences in thought and action.

How It Works

Trained facilitators lead small-groups of 15-20 participants through four sequential Action Collabs that include brainstorming, design, and improv. The pace is fast, the discussions are dynamic, and the outcomes can be groundbreaking.

Action Collab 1: Identifying Opportunities
Identifying Opportunities is a stage for participants to revisit familiar educational problems with fresh eyes. They are open to all possibilities and consider voices that might challenge their worldviews. Knowledge collaboration is essential to solving big, intractable problems as participants discuss a wide range of challenges and choose a couple for further exploration.

Action Collab 2: Design
Building on brainstorming from Action Collab 1, the group designs potential solutions to identified challenges. Ideas diverge and converge as participants brainstorm one hundred ways a certain concept could be designed. Quantity is the building block during this phase as the group starts to synthesize ideas.

Action Collab 3: Prototype
Participants experiment with design ideas and focus on how the design is implemented. Facilitators encourage activities such as sketching out a website, creating paper models, or acting out the service. This stage embraces failure as an indicator of open thinking toward plausible solutions. Groups are encouraged to think, act, and write in a rapid brainstorming fashion.

Action Collab 4: Scale and Spread
With the kernel of an idea that the group has created, participants develop an innovative way to engage an audience with their concept. This can be through the use of multimedia tools, crafting narrative stories, or creating presentations that engage and motivate an audience to fund or support the scale and spread of their idea.

Improv
Big Ideas are born from out of the box thinking. Improv provides a challenge to do just that. The primary tenets of improv used throughout Action Collabs encourage top-down, bottom-up, AND side-to-side thinking.

Action Collabs follow the primary tenets of improv:

• Suspend judgment
• Let go of your agenda
• Listen in order to receive
• Build on what you receive
• Make your partner look brilliant
• Look for connection

Learn More

The Action Collabs Facilitator Manual will be available this Spring. Please sign up to receive The Buzz On Big Ideas to be notified when the manual is available. [link to sign up form] To bring Action Collabs into your organization, please email This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Read about our 2009 Action Collabs Facilitators.