How often have you used brainstorming to solve a problem? Chances are, you’ve used it at least once, even if you didn’t realize it. However, you need to use brainstorming correctly for it to be fully effective. In this article, we’ll look at what it is, why it is useful and how to get the best from it
What Is Brainstorming?
A relaxed, informal approach to problem solving with lateral thinking
- Encourages people to come up with ideas that may seem crazy at first
- Some of these ideas can be crafted into original, creative solutions to a problem
- Avoid criticizing or rewarding ideas
- Evaluate ideas at the end of the session
Step 1: Prepare the Group
Set up a comfortable meeting environment for the session
- Make sure that the room is well-lit and that you have the tools, resources, and refreshments that you need
- Consider who will attend the meeting
- When everyone is gathered, appoint one person to record the ideas that come from the session
Guide the Discussion
As the group facilitator, you should share ideas if you have them, but spend your time and energy supporting your team and guiding the discussion
- Let everyone have fun while brainstorming
- Make sure that you generate a good number of different ideas, and explore individual ideas in detail
The Next Step
Taking Action
- Analyzing ideas is an important next step
- Use Affinity Diagrams to organize ideas and find common themes
- Decision Matrix Analysis and Paired Comparison Analysis to help you choose between different options
- Six Thinking Hats technique to look at ideas from different perspectives
- Modified Borda Count and Multi-Voting to help with the subjective aspects
Group Brainstorming
Takes advantage of the full experience and creativity of all team members
- Can develop ideas in greater depth
- Helps everyone contribute to the solution
- Reminds people they have creative ideas to offer
- Risks for individuals
- Requires a wide cross-section of experience
Key Points
When managed well, brainstorming can help generate radical solutions to problems
How to Use the Tool
Best results by combining individual and group brainstorming
Present the Problem
Clearly define the problem that you want to solve, and lay out any criteria that you must meet
Why Use Brainstorming?
Conventional group problem solving can often be undermined by unhelpful group behavior
- By contrast, brainstorming provides a free and open environment that encourages everyone to participate
- It brings team members’ diverse experience into play, increasing the richness of ideas explored and helping them find better solutions
Individual Brainstorming
When brainstorming on your own, you don’t have to worry about other people’s egos or opinions, and you can be freer and more creative.
- However, you may not develop ideas as fully when you’re on your alone.
Taking Your Brainstorming Further
The Stepladder Technique
- This improves the contribution of quieter group members by introducing one person at a time.
- Brainwriting
- This is a written approach that you can use to encourage all individuals to generate and develop ideas
- Online brainstorming (also known as Brain-netting)
- An electronic method of brainstorming, this uses a document stored on a central server, or on a Cloud-based system
- Crawford’s Slip Writing Approach
- You can use this approach to get plenty of ideas from all participants, and to get a view of each idea’s popularity
