The Romeo and Juliet Mystery
Romeo and Juliet Mystery is an exciting question and answer game to exercise creativity and develop lateral thinking.
Challenge your group to solve a mystery, with limited facts, as quickly as possible. Gather your group, invite them to sit them down and present the ‘facts, the whole facts and nothing but the facts’ of a particular situation.
To help them find a solution, your group can only ask you questions that can be answered with “YES” or “NO.” When ready, state the facts of the mystery:
“Romeo and Juliet are dead, lying in a puddle of water with broken glass everywhere. How did they die?”
Invite your group to start asking questions. You may only respond with “YES” or “NO.”
Often times, a group will ask questions that are irrelevant or do not help the group to get closer to a solution. If this occurs, simply say “IRRELEVANT” and invite another question.
As with all lateral-thinking exercises, it is critical that you do not let these mysteries linger for too long, lest people quickly disengage and will likely refuse to play them again. If, after ten or more minutes, your group has not solved the mystery, you may guide your group to ask questions about a certain topic to draw them closer to a solution.
Moment of Reflection
- What feelings did you or the group experience during the activity? Why?
- Did you or the group make any assumptions? Provide an example.
- How easy was it to identify and/or dismantle these assumptions?
- Where else in our lives do we make assumptions that cause us to make poor decisions?
And the answer to the question is that Romeo and Juliet were fish, and their fish tank fell over and crashed to the ground.
The topics of this publication: teamwork, creativity, motivation, interactions, active listening, imagination, brainstorming
