Simultaneously, a facilitator records all ideas so they can be discussed once the sharing is over. It's very important to not evaluate any ideas until everyone has the opportunity to share. This technique is good when some of your team members have a tendency to stay quiet throughout meetings.
When leading a session, the round robin method of brainstorming allows everyone to pitch in and contribute. Just make sure to treat each idea with equal weight. And try to discourage people from saying "X already mentioned my idea.
This form of brainstorming focuses on forming questions rather than answers. Starbursting challenges the team to come up with as many questions as they can about your topic.
An easy way to begin a session like this would be to start listing questions that deal with the who, what, where, when, and why. This style assures that all aspects of the project are addressed before any work goes into executing it. It's a good technique for teams who tend to overlook certain aspects of a project and end up rushing to get things done last minute.
Thinking up some good brainstorming questions has the added benefit of giving you an instant backlog of ideas for web content: In case you need a FAQ section for your website or product, simply answer the generated questions. Developed in , this style of brainstorming encourages every member in the team to contribute individually before being influenced by everyone else.
The session begins with the facilitator sharing the topic or question with the whole team. Once the topic is shared, everyone leaves the room except two members of the team. These two members will then discuss the topic and their ideas. Then, one additional member is added to the group. Repeat this cycle until everyone from the original group is in the room. This technique prevents groupthink in teams where one or two members hold sway over everyone else.
This also helps encourage the shy folks in the group to share their ideas without feeling intimidated by a room full of people. The stepladder technique is actually one of the more mature brainstorming strategies as it incorporates both an individual and a group participation aspect.
This technique is useful for medium-sized groups of anywhere from five to 15 people. Once the group gets larger, however, it takes much longer and may become unwieldy. However, as fun as it is to rock out like Wayne and Garth, try to stick to these guidelines for picking music for productivity :. Two examples you could play: Bach's Brandenburg Concertos, if you like classical music, or some deep house if you enjoy electronic dance music.
So why is brainstorming in a group beneficial? The definition of brainstorming holds the key: It is a way to solve problems by holding a group discussion and collecting information or ideas that are arrived at via "unrestrained and spontaneous participation in discussion. It's a useful method, especially in the early stages of a product or a company's growth, to bring together a wide range of viewpoints.
Additionally, it's a quick way to generate a large quantity of ideas. Instead of just one or two, a group effort can exponentially increase the number of ideas. Here are a few tips to help your next brainstorm become a resounding success:. Does your team brainstorm successfully?
Make sure that you use a mix of exercises--some that encourage people to participate verbally for instance, calling out an idea , while others require writing, building something, creating posters and other non-verbal participation.
As in 2, change the size of teams. Over the course of one brainstorming workshop, I'm likely to break the group into teams of six to eight, to split those teams into three-person pods, and even to ask people to pair up in teams of two. Mixing it up alters the interpersonal dynamics. Usually, an icebreaker exercise is used at the beginning of a session, but you can bring it in anytime you need it.
Remain positive even if the energy is grinding to a halt. Be encouraging, but don't feel compelled to break a silence or solve the problem. Help participants work through the obstacle. Throw an imaginary cat. I love this exercise from Gabriel Aldez, director at the product development engineering firm Simplexity. Ask six or eight people to stand up and form a circle. Give them two instructions: Try not to do anything interesting or creative. Second, be fast and don't overthink.
Say that you have an imaginary tennis ball that you are throwing into the circle. As you throw the ball, ask participants to pass it around and play with it, describing what they are doing. In a few minutes, turn the ball into a feather. And a few minutes later, turn the feather into a cat. Encourage participants to act fast and keep talking.
What will happen is that people will get creative despite the instruction not to. When Aldez facilitated the exercise with students, "One student dribbled the imaginary ball between his legs, like a basketball player. If the boss is present then it is better to have a good independent facilitator — someone who can encourage input from everyone and stop one person from dominating.
The worst formula for a brainstorming session is generally the department manager leading the team and acting as scribe and censor at the same time. The most important rule of brainstorming is to suspend judgment.
In order to encourage a wealth of wacky ideas, it is essential that no one is critical, negative or judgmental about an idea. Any idea that is uttered — no matter how stupid — must be written down. The rule about suspending judgment during the idea generation phase is so important that it is worth enforcing rigorously. A good technique is to issue water pistols; anyone who is critical gets squirted. Quantity is great.
The more ideas the better. Brainstorming is one the few activities in life where quantity improves quality.
Think of it as a Darwinian process. The more separate ideas that are generated the greater the chance that some will be fit enough to survive. You need stacks of energy and buzz driving lots of wacky ideas. Crazy thoughts that are completely unworkable are often the springboards for other ideas that can be adapted into great new solutions. So keep the crazy ideas coming — you have to kiss a lot of frogs to find one prince! If people see no real outcomes they will become frustrated with the process and lose faith.
You should quickly analyze the ideas at the meeting. One of the best ways is to divide the proposals into three categories — promising interesting or reject. If any of the promising ideas are real no-brainers — so good that they should be implemented immediately, then give them to someone as an action item immediately.
You should categorize and collect the ideas. On a separate flipchart, write all the promising and interesting ideas which are marketing ideas, on another chart all the sales ideas, etc. This process of rearranging the ideas can help you see new combinations and possibilities. Some people use Post-It notes at this stage so that they can easily move ideas around.
If you are pressed for time, then an alternative method of selecting the best ideas is to give everyone five points. They can allocate points to their favorite ideas in any way that they want. They can give one point to five separate ideas or all five to one idea.
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