Organise a brainstorming session

Description

Brainstorming allows to develop creative solutions to problems. It works by focusing on a problem, and then having participants come up with as many deliberately unusual solutions as possible and by pushing the ideas as far as possible.

Method

• Select participants from as wide a range of disciplines with as broad a range of experience as possible. This brings many more creative ideas to the session.
• Select a leader for the session, who can:
  • Outline any criteria that must be met.
  • Keep the session on course.
  • Encourage an enthusiastic, uncritical attitude among brainstormers.
  • Encourage participation by all.
  • Set times for the whole brainstorming session, and for generating ideas.
  • Keep fresh ideas coming, and welcome creativity.
  • Do not allow any one train of thought to dominate for too long.
  • Do not criticise or evaluate during the brainstorming session (criticism stifles creativity and spoils the fun).
  • Record ideas no matter how unrealistic, until there are no more ideas, or the time allocated for generating ideas is up.
  • Record all ideas on a whiteboard or projector so that all participants can see all the ideas.
  • Encourage ‘spark off’ associations from other people’s ideas, or combinations of ideas.
  • Either evaluate solutions at the end of the brainstorming session to agree on the most practical way forward, or record the session either as notes, tape recording or video for later evaluation.

Source

1. http://www.dse.vic.gov.au/effective-engagement/toolkit/tool-brainstorming