Change the Rules
List all rules and assumptions you bring to a problem, then invert each one. Opens new solution spaces by challenging every constraint.
Structure
Context
Change the Rules is an inversion-based creative exercise that generates new solution spaces by systematically challenging every assumption underlying an existing approach, process, or problem.
Phase 1: List the Rules
Participants identify all the rules, constraints, and assumptions that currently govern a specific situation or problem. These can be explicit policies ("reports must be submitted by Friday"), implicit norms ("the CEO always presents the strategy"), physical constraints ("meetings happen in the conference room"), or assumed necessities ("this process requires three approval layers").
The goal is to surface everything that is treated as fixed but is actually chosen. Aim for 10-15 items.
Phase 2: Invert Every Rule
For each rule, the group generates the direct inverse: what would the world look like if this rule were the exact opposite?
- "Reports submitted by Friday" becomes "Reports submitted whenever they're actually done"
- "CEO presents strategy" becomes "Strategy presented by the team that implements it"
- "Meetings in the conference room" becomes "Meetings wherever the work is happening"
Phase 3: Find the Gems
Not all inversions are useful, but some will reveal something real - an assumption that was limiting, a constraint that was protecting the status quo, a rule that was serving someone's interest rather than the goal. Participants identify the most interesting inversions and ask: what problem would this solve if it were true?
Timing
15-20 minutes for the listing and inversion phases, 15-20 minutes for the gem-finding and debrief.
How to Teach It
How to Explain It
"What are all the rules of [this situation]? Not just the official ones - the ones you assume are true even if nobody wrote them down. List them all. Then flip every single one. Not to destroy them - to see what they're actually doing."
Why It Matters
Change the Rules makes implicit assumptions explicit and testable. Most constraints on problem-solving are not actually constraints - they are unexamined defaults. By inverting them systematically, participants discover which constraints are genuinely necessary (inverting them produces something obviously worse or impossible) and which are legacy assumptions that have never been questioned. The latter category is often where significant innovation and improvement opportunities live.
Common Coaching Notes
- Surface the implicit rules. The explicit rules (policies, procedures) are easy to list. The implicit rules (who is supposed to speak first, how long things are supposed to take, who has authority over what) are where the most interesting inversions live.
- Not every inversion needs to be implemented. The point is not to implement the inversions but to see what they reveal. Even an obviously bad inversion might reveal why the original rule exists - and whether that reason is still valid.
- Protect the listing phase. Don't start evaluating before the list is complete. Every premature evaluation kills an assumption that might have been the most interesting one.
Debrief Questions
- Which inversion surprised you most?
- Which rule turned out to be more optional than you assumed?
- What would you actually change if you could?
In Applied Settings
Organizational Context
Change the Rules applies inversion thinking to the specific challenge of organizational constraint analysis - the systematic identification and questioning of the assumed rules that limit what a team, department, or organization can do. In most organizations, there are far more flexible constraints than participants realize: norms, conventions, defaults, and habits that were appropriate at one point and have simply never been revisited. The exercise creates a structured, low-risk environment for surfacing and questioning these hidden constraints.
Workplace and Innovation Applications
The exercise is particularly valuable in organizational contexts that have become stuck in patterns that are no longer productive: teams that have stopped generating new approaches, processes that have accumulated unnecessary complexity, strategies that rest on assumptions about the environment that no longer hold. Change the Rules provides a way to surface and question these patterns without requiring individual participants to directly challenge authority or break norms - the exercise structure provides permission for the questioning.
Meeting and Design Applications
In workshop settings focused on process design, organizational development, or strategic planning, Change the Rules works as a powerful input to subsequent design work. After the inversion exercise, participants can apply a "what should we actually change?" filter to their list of inverted rules, identifying the highest-leverage modifications to existing approaches. The exercise combines well with other design-thinking tools like How Might We questions and Assumption Storming.
Facilitation Notes
Facilitators should be alert to the implicit organizational power dynamics that shape which rules participants are willing to list and invert. In hierarchical organizations, there will be rules governing senior leadership behavior that participants are reluctant to name explicitly. Creating genuine psychological safety for the listing phase - including modeling it by listing rules that govern the facilitator's own role - is essential to getting the full value from the exercise.
Skills Developed
Worth Reading
See all books →
The Upright Citizens Brigade Comedy Improvisation Manual
Matt Besser; Ian Roberts; Matt Walsh
Pirate Robot Ninja
An Improv Fable
Billy Merritt; Will Hines
The Improv Mindset
Change Your Brain. Change Your Business.
Gail Montgomery; Bruce T. Montgomery
Business Unscripted
Business is Improv
Ben Winter; Tara Hedberg
Directing Improv
Asaf Ronen
Impro
Improvisation and the Theatre
Keith Johnstone
Related Exercises
Bad Ad Product Game
Groups create a product and ad campaign for something that does everything wrong. By revolving an object to view its weird sides, players discover creativity through inversion.
Adapting to Ambiguous Information
In a circle, one person poses a problem, the next proposes a nonsensical solution, and the third links them together. Builds comfort with uncertainty.
Three Rules
Three Rules is a scene exercise in which the facilitator establishes three specific constraints that performers must maintain throughout their scene. The constraints can be physical (always touching the wall, never letting your hands go below your waist), verbal (never using the letter S, only asking questions), or behavioral (treat your partner as royalty, move as if underwater). The exercise demonstrates that limitations generate rather than restrict creative choices, and trains performers to divide attention between scene work and rule compliance.
Adaptability
Exercises specifically designed to practice adapting to rapidly changing circumstances and unexpected developments.
Acceptance
Acceptance is an applied improv exercise in which participants hear a new location, answer together with "Yes, let's," and immediately populate that environment as people or objects inside it. The exercise turns acceptance into visible behavior: participants must receive the new reality, enter it quickly, and adjust when someone else has already chosen the role they wanted.
How to Reference This Page
The Improv Archive. (2026). Change the Rules. Retrieved March 17, 2026, from https://improvarchive.org/exercises/change-the-rules
The Improv Archive. "Change the Rules." The Improv Archive, 2026. https://improvarchive.org/exercises/change-the-rules.
The Improv Archive. "Change the Rules." The Improv Archive, 2026, https://improvarchive.org/exercises/change-the-rules. Accessed March 17, 2026.
The Improv Archive is a systemically maintained repository. The archive itself acts as the corporate author.