Brainstorming Methods

Poll

	|   |

Author:
Steve Gillman

Have you been in a "brainstorming" session where each person just defended their own ideas? Worse is when people don't suggest ideas at all, for fear they'll be attacked. That's no way to brainstorm. Brainstorming is using the power of many minds, and ideas should flow freely and trigger other ideas. How do you make that happen?



The Key To Good Brainstorming

You have to have a good leader to have good brainstorming. The leader isn't there to impose his will, though, but to stop the imposition of anyones will. His role is to stop criticisms, arguments, and even strong opinions, at least in the first part of the session.

A brainstorming session needs to be spontaneous, open and uncritical. "Bad" or "silly" ideas can lead to helpful ones, so suggestions have to be left un-judged at first. To brainstorm effectively, you can't stifle the creative process. The leaders job, then, is to make everyone feel free to suggest any ideas.

An Example Of Good Brainstorming

The scenario: your business needs to cut delivery costs. The group throws out ideas and thoughts. "Let's not deliver," someone suggests, and when another starts to criticize, you remind him of the rules. "Negotiate lower rates," somebody says, "Or just find a company with lower rates," another adds. Ideas like reducing package weight and charging customers more are suggested, and lead to other ideas.

You keep it civil, take notes, and eventually call a halt to this free-for-all part of the session. Now it's time to evaluate and develop the ideas for whatever usefulness they may have.

To keep the creativity flowing in this stage, have participants defend or develop ideas that are not their own. This brings new insight to the idea, and prevents the problem of ego-identification that causes people to get "stuck in a rut" with their own ideas.

For example, ask the man who was critical of the idea of not delivering to work with that idea. "We have to deliver," he might start with. Then he thinks for a second and says, "I suppose we could deliver to central distribution points instead of to the individual customer. The customer could drive a short distance to pick up their order. That might save us on shipping."

Someone else suggests that the customers may like the arrangement. They would be able to return the product immediately if they were dissatisfied, with no need to pack and ship it. You assign a couple people to look into it, and move on to the other ideas.

Good leadership keeps the whole process working. In the last example, you've even used a "bad" idea to come to a possible solution. That's good brainstorming.





About the author:
Steve Gillman has been studying brainpower enhancement, creative problem solving, and related topics for years. You can visit his website, and subscribe to his free Mind Power Course, at: http://www.IncreaseBrainPower.com/mind-power.html

A Quick Note From The Publisher... If you like the article above, you may be interested in the following article which is also related to Brainpower... The DIY Guide To Brainstorming If you and your team are looking for a technique that’s pretty well guaranteed to solve all your problems, and come up with ideas you’d never think of on your own, then you can’t do better than good old-fashioned Brainstorming. When done correctly, Brainstorming is all of the following: simple, quick, productive, effective, developmental, teambuilding, and, perhaps most of all, fun. The technique has been around for a long time. It was first used by Alex Osborn, an advertising executive of the 1950’s, who laid down the following 5 rules when performing a brainstorming session: 1. no evaluation of ideas 2. wild ideas to be encouraged (in fact, the more, the better) 3. quantity of ideas all-important 4. participants should build on each others’ ideas 5. apart from these 4, no other rules were needed. A brainstorming session can be used for all sorts of problems. It works for little problems where there is a solution waiting to be identified, such as a machine fault, to situations where there is no known solution, such as “How do we improve customer service?” So, how should you brainstorm? Based on Osborn’s 5 principles, the following method is one of the best: • First create a good group climate. Warm them up with a mini icebreaker or fun game. Don’t brainstorm in a group that isn’t already laughing, joking and chatting. • Select as many scribes as you can find with as many flipchart stands as you can find. Check these people are your quickest writers. Their job is to hear and record every idea. • Now write up your problem clearly and precisely. Make sure everyone can see it and understand it. • Then you’re ready to go. Encourage a constant flow of ideas while keeping some kind of order. Don’t put a time limit on the session as this adds pressure...