Guidelines for Brainstorming

I encourage you to read Brian Libby’s article on BNET “The Right Way to Brainstorm“. He lists rules for how to set up for a successful brainstorming session. Its a quick and simple read. Also I have included my comments on his article about how brainstorming is a right-brain, creative process and needs to be treated as such.

Here are the 7 points he makes.

1. Choose Your Players
2. Assign Pre-meeting Homework
3. Don’t Tolerate Criticism
4. Encourage Collaboration
5. Evaluate Later
6. Don’t Get Discouraged

The Right Way to Brainstorm +

Brian’s post is excellent in how he simply explains the rules for setting up a brainstorming session. This is a creative process and any impediments, such as criticisms, in the initial stages are likely to sabotage the process. People are more likely and able to defend themselves if they are criticized about something in their field of expertise. However because so many people feel out of their league in a creative process, they are more likely to shut down their creative thinking if there is the threat, real or perceived, of taking flak for their ideas.

I would also go one step further than the guidelines Brian describes by highlighting the idea of brainstorming as a creative, right-brain exercise. In order to get the most out of a session, the facilitator needs to employ right-brain tools and strategies to get the most out of your participants in the quickest period of time. Don’t come to the meeting armed with spreadsheets, graphs, etc. These are left-brain tools and will squash the creative process faster than you can say Excel. These left-brain tools are best used for how the team is going to action the ideas generated from brainstorming. Two different processes for two different results; creative and actions.

In my company, we use photographs to stimulate conversations originating from the right-brain whether the group is focused on team building, strategic visioning, or brainstorming. The exercises are quick and fun, not to mention bountiful, because our process is all about the right or creative side of the brain. Once the ideas are generated and the insights gained then we will use other types of tools and processes to make them actionable.

Tom Tiernan
www.VisualsSpeak.com