30 Circles
30 Circles is a three-minute drawing exercise that shows a group, in real time, how much it self-censors before it even tries - and opens a conversation about what blocks divergent thinking.
Five steps run left to right: hand out the circles, set the timer, draw an object in each one, count for uniqueness, then debrief what blocked people.
Reach for this when…
- A team says it wants fresh ideas but every brainstorm produces the same three.
- You need a quick, visceral way to open a session on creativity or innovation.
- Someone in the room insists they're 'not a creative person'.
How to run it
- Give each person a sheet of 30 empty circles.
- Set a timer, usually three minutes.
- Ask them to turn as many circles as possible into recognisable objects.
- Call time and count how many are complete, and how many are genuinely unique.
- Debrief: what blocked people, what unlocked the ones who went furthest.
A worked example
Situation. Naliaka Wafula runs Tumaini Blooms, a flower export farm near Nairobi, Kenya, and her supervisors kept producing the same tired list of ideas whenever she asked for ways to cut post-harvest losses.
Applied. She opened the next planning meeting with 30 Circles instead of an agenda, timed it at three minutes, and had people call out their count.
Result. Most stopped near ten circles, blocked by wanting each drawing to be 'good'. The two supervisors who finished thirty had just gone fast and sloppy - which became the opening line for a looser, faster approach to the loss problem itself.
The catch
It's a warm-up, not an answer - the exercise proves a point about self-censorship but doesn't by itself generate the ideas you need. It can feel gimmicky to sceptical, senior groups if you don't frame why you're doing it. A weak debrief wastes it: the learning is in the conversation after, not the drawing.
If nobody in the room reflects on why they stopped early, you've run a game, not an exercise.
Origin: Bob McKim / Stanford; popularised by IDEO