Back in 2010, Tom Wujec had a TED talk, about an innovative way of thinking when it comes to getting people to collaborate.

The Marshmallow Challenge (TMC) was introduced to a class as a creative exercise. In short, the exercise involves participants in groups of 4 building the tallest tower using only the following materials: spaghetti, tape, string, and a marshmallow to be placed on top of the tower. Participants then have 18 minutes to build the tallest tower with the marshmallow on top.

The exercise has various strengths and weaknesses. The exercise can be defined as a creativity constraint exercise (Biskjaer & Onarheim, 2013) as participants are faced with a task with many constraints. These constraints include time limitation and the materials available.