Improve your brainstorming
sessions Sometimes leadership means mobilizing the creative talents of a group to generate ideas. Brainstorming is a great way to do that. I've done a lot of brainstorming sessions and have found a few rules that work well. I use a pretty structured process that yields good results. When working on a difficult problem and searching for a lot of good ideas in a short time, it's very effective. It's all about creative thinking. It's important to remember that brainstorming is a creative, not a critical or analytical process. These rules are designed to encourage creativity. Postpone criticism and analysis, because they tend to stifle creativity. Set rules in advance Even though it may seem like a free-for-all, a good brainstorming session isn't. Agree on your rules before you start. Keep it simple. There's no way to bring a group back if no rules have been agreed upon. Write down a clear objective Start with a clear statement of the topic or goal. Are you brainstorming about ways to solve a problem? (e.g. "Ways to increase community reporting in our northwest region with existing resources") Or perhaps you're trying to generate story ideas for a new section. Be clear. You can't bring the group back to the topic if it's not stated. Write it on a white board or flip chart where everyone in the group can see it. Quantity The desired result is a lot of ideas, and some valuable ideas. It's really sort of a numbers game. If you get a lot of creative ideas, some will have merit. This requires that you have subsequent steps to process the many ideas generated. I tend to use a formal sequence of tools with the group after brainstorming. You can do this many ways, but evaluating ideas is not part of the brainstorming. Facilitation Designating someone to facilitate the process can help. This gives one person the authority and responsibility to keep the group on track. Remember that the role is to facilitate the process - make it easier - not to manage it. No Criticism The thing that I've found most disturbs the creative process in brainstorming is criticism, so there's one rule I use: During the brainstorming itself there is no criticism of ideas. It's o.k. to ask for clarification of an idea, because it helps to know what somebody meant by a brief suggestion. But don't let that wander off into "how would we do that?" or "but wouldn't that be a problem if..." Participation You need ideas from the whole group. If you don't think this is true, you've got the wrong group in the room and you're wasting someone's time. So encourage everyone to participate. Silent Brainstorming Some people are reluctant to speak up. I often start a brainstorming session with two minutes of silent brainstorming. Each person writes down as many ideas as possible in two minutes, related to the topic, until the facilitator says "stop". Then each person, in turn, reads their ideas. During this time the others may think of more ideas based on what they 've heard. If so, write them down, don't shout them out . Let everyone speak their ideas in turn at this phase. Open brainstorming After silent brainstorming I shift into a different approach. As each person has an idea, they say it out loud and write it on a post-it note and sticks it on the wall. Using bold markers makes the notes easier to read from a distance. Don't build the whole solution Especially with problem solving sessions, this is important. When someone comes up with an idea it is appropriate to ask for a brief clarification, if necessary, to make sure it's understood. That's not the same as following all the implications of the idea. If you do that, you're likely to slip into criticism (it won't work because "x") or run down a rat-hole of details. Humor There's no real rule on this, but I've found that humor can go two ways. It can take you far off base, especially if you have a clown in the group whose main objective is to get attention. However, anything that' s really funny typically has some germ of truth or relevance to it. Humor can also be a way for someone to deftly float an idea that he's really serious about, but camouflaged as a joke to reduce risk. In either case, let the laughs happen, but look for the relevance to the comment. I've often found that the really good ideas come just after the really crazy ideas. Build on other ideas That's one of the most effective aspects of brainstorming. It's a group free-association. This is especially important when building upon those crazy ideas that were perhaps offered as a joke! Other tips for facilitation
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