WUT - Spring, 2007 Exercise: Superhero Powers 1

Exercise:

Superhero Powers

• Identify novel ways to provide improvements

WUT - Spring, 2007 Exercise: Superhero Powers 2

Whats - Prioritized

Target Improvements

Hows – Solutions to

Technical Problems

Just completed

Next

WUT - Spring, 2007 Exercise: Superhero Powers 3

Ideation

You are

back here!

Target Improvement

Looking for Technical Solutions

What to improve

How to improve it

WUT - Spring, 2007 Exercise: Superhero Powers 4

The purpose of this exercise is to generate:

• Wild,

• Crazy,

• Stupid,

• Impossible

ways to solve technical problems.

And then ask:

• Why is that impossible?

• What technology do I need to make this possible?

WUT - Spring, 2007 Exercise: Superhero Powers 5

• Break into improvement teams.

• For your improvement, answer these question:

• Why can’t I make this improvement today?

• If this is such a big problem, then why has nobody solved it?

• This will tell you what technical problem you need to solve.

• Maybe this is a technical problem, but maybe it is not!

• Maybe it is some other kind of problem!

Now…

WUT - Spring, 2007 Exercise: Superhero Powers 6

• Each student reads the superhero powers of their Marvel Comics character.

• The team discusses ways that each superhero power could be used to provide the improvement.

• You say: If I had this superhero power, I could solve this problem by …….

• After discussion, each student writes down a way to provide the improvement using their superhuman power.

• Don’t worry if this seems crazy or impossible, just write it down!

• Each student reads their solution to the class.