What is Brainstorming?

• Brainstorming is the name given to a situation when a group of people meet to generate new ideas around a specific area of interest. Using rules which remove inhibitions, people are able to think more freely and move into new areas of thought and so create numerous new ideas and solutions. The participants shout out ideas as they occur to them and then build on the ideas raised by others. All the ideas are noted down and are not criticized. Only when the brainstorming session is over are the ideas evaluated.
• Brainstorming is a useful and popular tool that you can use to develop highly creative solutions to a problem. Brainstorming creates new ideas, solves problems, motivates and develops teams. Brainstorming motivates because it involves members of a team in bigger management issues, and it gets a team working together. However, brainstorming is not simply a random activity. Brainstorming needs to be structured and it follows brainstorming rules.
• It is particularly useful when you need to break out of stale, established patterns of thinking, so that you can develop new ways of looking at things. This can be when you need to develop new opportunities, where you want to improve the existing solutions, or when existing approaches just aren't giving you the results you want.
• Brainstorming is particularly useful when used with your team: Here it helps you bring the experience of all team members into play during problem solving.
• This increases the richness of solutions explored (meaning that you can find better solutions to the problems you face, and make better decisions.) It can also help you get buy in from team members for the solution chosen - after all, they have helped shape that solution.
• In life, work or otherwise, we find ourselves traveling the spiral between the known and the unknown. That is, knowing and not-knowing. It is often when stakes, emotions and eyebrows are high that we find ourselves in this not-knowing area of the spiral.  Brainstorming and design (my electric outlets in Warsaw) is about not-knowing.

Brainstorming and Lateral Thinking

• Brainstorming is a lateral thinking process. It asks that people come up with ideas and thoughts that seem at first to be a bit shocking or crazy. You can then change and improve them into ideas that are useful, and often stunningly original.
• During brainstorming sessions there should therefore be no criticism of ideas: You are trying to open up possibilities and break down wrong assumptions about the limits of the problem. Judgments and analysis at this stage will stunt idea generation.
• Ideas should only be evaluated at the end of the brainstorming session - you can then explore solutions further using conventional approaches.
• If your ideas begin to dry up, you can 'seed' the session with, for example, a random word
   

Group Brainstorming

• Group brainstorming can be very effective as it uses the experience and creativity of all members of the group. When individual members reach their limit on an idea, another member's creativity and experience can take the idea to the next stage. Therefore, group brainstorming tends to develop ideas in more depth than individual brainstorming.
• Brainstorming in a group can be risky for individuals. Valuable but strange suggestions may appear stupid at first sight. Because of such, you need to facilitate sessions tightly so that uncreative people do not crush these ideas and leave group members feeling humiliated.
   

Brainstorming Rules

1. Collect as many ideas as possible from all participants with no criticisms or judgments made while ideas are being generated.
2. All ideas are welcome no matter how silly or far out they seem. Be creative. The more ideas the better because at this point you don't know what might work.
3. Absolutely no discussion takes place during the brainstorming activity. Talking about the ideas will take place after brainstorming is complete.
4. Do not criticize or judge. Don't even groan, frown, or laugh. No censoring of ideas - sometimes the best idea is the craziest one.
5. What happens here stays here (meaning that people don't have to fear having their thoughts talked about/laughed at after the session ends) .
6. Do build on others' ideas.
7. Collect all idea  notes (Post-its) on white board/flip chart so the whole group can easily access them.
8. Set a time limit (i.e., 30 minutes) for the brainstorming.
    

Brainstorming Process

1. Define and agree the objective
   One team member or facilitator should review the topic of the brainstorm using "what", "how", or "why" questions (three quadrants of 4-blocker). Make sure the topic being brainstormed is clear to all . Write it on a flip chart or white board.
2. Brainstorm ideas and suggestions having agreed a time limit
   Invite participants to record ideas on a note - 1 idea per note. Everyone should think about the question silently for a while.
3. Categorize/condense/combine/refine
   Get everyone on his or her feet in any order, standing round a white board and ask him or her to stick all the notes on it.
   When all the ideas have been collected, combine ideas as much as possible, but only when the original contributors agree.
   Ask everyone should join in to group the ideas according to theme and draw a circle round the group and label the theme.
4. Assess/analyze effects or results
   Encourage cross-fertilization of ideas and combining two or more ideas into one. New ideas should be recorded on additional notes (Post-its recommended).
5. Prioritize options/rank list as appropriate.
6. Agree on actions and timescale
   Agree what the next actions will be. Agree a timescale, who's responsible. After the session circulate notes, monitor and give feedback.
7. Control and monitor follow-up

Note: The team member in charge - facilitator - of the brainstorming session should be enforcing the rules.

Summary

• Plan and agree the brainstorming aim
  Ensure everyone participating in the brainstorm session understands and agrees the aim of the session. Keep the brainstorming objective simple. Allocate a time limit. This will enable you to keep the random brainstorming activity under control and on track.
• Manage the actual brainstorming activity
  Brainstorming enables people to suggest ideas at random. Your job as facilitator is to encourage everyone to participate, to dismiss nothing, and to prevent others from pouring scorn on the wilder suggestions (some of the best ideas are initially the daftest ones - added to which people won't participate if their suggestions are criticized). Use Post-its to hang them on the white board or flip chart. At the end of the time limit or when ideas have been exhausted - categorize, group, connect and link the random ideas. Condense and refine the ideas by making new headings or lists. You can diplomatically combine or include the weaker ideas within other themes to avoid dismissing or rejecting contributions (remember brainstorming is about team building and motivation too - you don't want it to have the reverse effect on some people). With the group, assess, evaluate and analyze the effects and validity of the ideas or the list. Develop and prioritize the ideas into a more finished list or set of actions or options.
• Implement the actions agreed from the brainstorming
  Agree what the next actions will be. Agree a timescale, who's responsible. After the session circulate notes, monitor and give feedback. It's crucial to develop a clear and positive outcome, so that people feel their effort and contribution was worthwhile. When people see that their efforts have resulted in action and change, they will be motivated and keen to help again.