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Benefits of brainstorming
Although some studies have shown that individuals working alone can generate more and better ideas than when working as a group, the brainstorming activity enables everyone in the group to gain a better understanding of the problem space, and has the added benefit of creating a feeling of common ownership of results.
Look out for...
- Preparation - arrive early, prepare the room and make sure you feel relaxed within it. Ensure the five brainstorming rules are visible in a prominent place.
- Be nice! - greet the participants as they arrive and welcome them individually. Encourage banter and laughter: you're after a smiling, relaxed bunch of people. Play some good music if you like.
- Fun but not trivial - brainstorming is, and should be, a lot of fun. It should be noisy, raucous and free flowing. So if it isn't, something is going wrong!
- Loosen up - a brainstorm comprises a group of people who free themselves from social inhibitions to generate as many ideas as possible so that original solutions are free to surface. Your role as a participant is to say whatever ideas you think of, whether they seem to be relevant or not. You won't be criticized because that's what you are supposed to be doing.
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Good resources |
Clegg, B, and Paul Birch (1999) Imagination Engineering. Financial Times Prentice Hall.
Osborn, A.F. (1963) Applied Imagination. Scribeners & Sons, NY.
de Bono, E. (1992) Serious Creativity. HarperBusiness, New York, US, 1992.
www.brainstorming.co.uk |
Alternative methods
There are many alternatives to brainstorming. Or perhaps more accurately, brainstorming can take many forms. Any collective, fun enterprise that results in novelty can be considered a kind of brainstorm: therefore a really good conversation might count, for example!
It is much more important to concentrate upon the goal - of generating novelty - than the process by which you achieve it.
If someone wants to insist - against the wishes of a group - upon a particular way of doing a brainstorm, they are probably not well suited to facilitate that group!
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