Brainstorming Meetings
Teams, Meetings, and Workshops often call for Brainstorming
Planning for a Brainstorming Meeting
When your brainstorming meetings can be planned ahead, you can prepare materials and expectations. You can also ask everyone to come ready with some ideas based on a question you pose to them.1. Let the team know what the topic or question is going to be. 2. Assign everyone the task to bring at least 3 (you pick the number) ideas to get things started. 3. Continue with either having them write them on separate sticky notes, 3x5 cards, or the first lines of a
brain-writing
sheet. 4. Develop a
mind-map,
or divide the group and give each team one cluster of ideas to expand. 5. Develop a list of options, Spend time expanding the option list. 6. Do a draft
prioritization of the options. 7. Take the first 3 or 4 on the list and do a pro and con list for each of them. 8. Decide whether to implement one or more. 9. Put a basic implementation plan in place that everyone has a piece and there is a leader. 10. Go for it!
Spontaneous Brainstorming in a Meeting
"We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them."
Albert Einstein
Often a subject, question, or problem is discussed in a meeting and someone says, "Let's brainstorm it!" Then the meeting turns into a brainstorming meeting and you did not have time to prepare. Having some brainstorming tools and processes that you can get access to quickly can make the session successful.What follows is usually a person gets up and goes to a board or flip-chart and asks for ideas. The ideas get written on a list followed by discussion. Unfortunately always doing brainstorming the same way gets the same results. And people get bored. They look around for someone else to suggest something. 1. Start by being sure the subject or problem is understood and everyone agrees. Then write it down as an open-ended question. 2. Next use one of the individual methods to have everyone write as many ideas as they can come up with. See individual methods for a number ideas how to do this. Encourage everyone to write down everything that comes to mind even if they think it sounds silly or that it wouldn't work. Great ideas often come from expanding on an idea that might have been discarded. No negativity and no value judgments, even positive ones, at this point.
Brain-writing
or challenging everyone to come up with 5 ideas can get things started. The best creative challenge is to require a larger number than you think is needed. If everyone can easily think of 5 then challenge them to come up with ten. This is really important because the first few ideas thought of are always the same old ones that always come to mind. You must challenge everyone to get those down on paper so they have to think different, out of the box, more creatively. Tools with questions posed such as the
KnowBrainer® Whackpak®, and Thinkpak®
can be used individually though often they aren't needed until the next step. 3. Gather all the ideas, clustering them by topic. Use mind-mapping, sticky-note clusters, affinity diagram, or dividing up teams to work further on each cluster. Expand the lists of ideas and still don't allow value judgments. Value judgments stop the contribution of ideas even if they are positive ones. We know that negative value judgments will stop people from continuing to contribute ideas but so will positive remarks. A positive remark may make it seem like the group has an answer or solution and they can all stop. Even when someone has some more ideas to contribute when comments make it sound like you are done they hold back. 4. Use the ideas and clusters to come up with more ideas, ideas that piggy-back on ones already written, and combinations. Ask an open-ended question about each idea and see where that leads. This is a great time to bring out one of the tools to trigger more questions. "Never stop questioning." 5. If you must come up with a decision in this meeting, then start organizing the clusters of ideas into options without narrowing down to one answer. Prioritize the options. Look at the pros and cons of each of the options. Ask more open ended questions about the options you are considering. Ask "What if?" questions. Ask "Why not?" questions. Don't jump to a conclusion too quickly or you may choose one that is not as good as another on the list.6. If you can take some more time, give everyone a small pad of paper that they must keep with them at all times until your follow-up meeting, even if the meeting is later the same day or the next morning. On that pad they should keep writing more ideas and thoughts about the subject. The pad of paper and a flashlight should be put on the bed stand at night since often we come up with our best ideas while dreaming, and they must be written down immediately. We always think we will remember in the morning but seldom are able to. Just write it down! 7. Choose or decide on one or more of the options and implement. Save the notes since the other options may be of value in the future.
Brainstorming-That-Works
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