Rules in a Storm

One of the most commonly used ideation method is brainstorming. However what many people don’t realize is that there is a right way to do brainstorming and a wrong way to do it. In fact there are rules to brainstorming that most people are unaware of. According to Alex Osborn in his 1957 book Applied Imagination the rules to brainstorming are:

1. Produce as many ideas as possible
2. Produce ideas as wild as possible
3. Build upon each other’s idea
4. Avoid passing judgment on ideas

Using these rules first penned by Osborn as the base and combining them with other ideas out there and with some of my own, stir them all together and voila! Here are the guidelines I use in the brainstorming sessions that I facilitate:

1. Go for quantity
2. Encourage wild ideas
3. Build upon each other’s idea
4. Defer judgment
5. Have one conversation at a time
6. Stay focused on the topic
7. Feel free to be visual and physical

I think most of us can understand the first six items pretty easily. Now, what does it mean to ‘feel free to be visual and physical’? Well being visual simply means to illustrate your ideas. Your illustrations don’t have to be masterpieces, they just need to be simple sketches. Sometimes a simple sketch will go a long way in helping other people understand your idea. As for being physical, all it means is to go ahead and stand, walk, act out your ideas, basically have fun during your brainstorming sessions! In all the brainstorming sessions in which I’ve either been a participant or facilitator, the best ones were usually where people were having fun while still staying focused on the topic at hand. There are also other aspects to a good brainstorming sessions like the environment, pre-brainstorming activity, a good brainstorming facilitator, etc. I will share more about these in my later posts.

Comments

[David Alexander]

Hi Andrew, you have some great ideas about brainstorming. I'm trying to come up with some ideas for a brainstorming session at work, but everyone seems to "groan" when I mention doing it. It's hard to get everyone involved in sharing new ideas. Some people who are not generally team players often find it hard to bring out their ideas, when sometimes they are the best ones!

Does your new company focus on these kinds of ideas or is it something different? Does it have an email address?

Thanks for your words, Dave

p.s Whens the next post? :)

[Andrew Tan]

David:
>>Some people who are not generally team >>players often find it hard >to bring out >>their ideas, when sometimes they are the >>best ones!

Andrew:
I’m assuming what you mean by “not generally team players” is that they are introverts but are still team players because if they are really not team players …. errr … well let’s just say that it is a whole different topic.

The most important thing is comfort and openness. If people feel comfortable and if the culture is open people will be more incline to share their ideas. For introverts sometimes they need a little more encouragement to come out from their shell.

Now once a group reaches a certain level in terms of culture transformation the other thing that one might want to look at is how to utilize people to their max potential. What I mean by this is some people share their ideas better by illustrating them, some by writing them down and some by talking about them so one should consider ways to play to their strengths.

I do want to share with you an alternative to brainstorming and is called brainwriting: At the start of the session everyone will have a sheet of paper to write down or illustrate one idea. Once they are done with this they will toss that sheet into the middle and then pick up a sheet put in by someone else. The person reads the idea on the sheet and tries to build on it in some way. Whether the person can build on it directly, they write another idea and toss it back into the middle and continue. Whenever anyone picks up a sheet from the middle they read through prior ideas, trying to make connections and ignite sparks of new idea. Anyway experiment with this technique, combine it with brainstorming find out what works with your group and what doesn’t.

David:
>>Does your new company focus on these kinds >>of ideas or is it something different?
Yes, it does ☺.

[boon]

I know that last set of 7 dos from the Art of Innovation. I use it too!