Making bad good

Why?

Making bad good is a quick and simple evaluation tool, which can be applied various times during an evaluation process. This method enables the students to identify the most important pros and cons of their ideas, which can form the basis for the selection of their best idea for further development.

How?

The teacher asks the students to write down respectively the three most significant plusses and minuses of their idea. Based on this, the students are now challenged to turn the three minuses into plusses and in this way develop their idea further. One way to do this is to make three mind maps that start from a minus in the centre of each map and then brainstorm on connections that can turn these minuses into plusses.

Tips

Due to its emphasis on further idea development, the method can also be applied as a part of the divergent phase. Thus, the teacher asks the students to use the minuses and plusses of the problem as starting points for creating new ideas.

Literature

Byttebier, I. and Ramon, V. (2007), Creativity Today, Amsterdam: BIS Publisher.