Brainstorming for fun and profit

It’s the first week of work of the year, and item number one in your mailbox is an invitation to a “brainstorm”.

With a belly full of Christmas cheer and a brain full of mind-numbing catch-up of all nine seasons of Criminal Minds, you might be forgiven for not being overly keen.

But actually, brainstorming is an incredibly effective technique for coming up with out-of-the-box solutions to business problems – the sky’s the limit and you might just surprise yourself.

What you shouldn’t do, however, is all pitch up in the room and stare blankly at one another, discussing everything from the latest internet sex scandal to how to effectively remove dog hair from your black trousers. Without a plan and a structure, even for “free-form creativity”, you’re likely to draw a blank.

Luckily, it’s easy enough to plan a session that will keep even the most creative minds at the peak of their productivity while simultaneously developing a usable idea that meets your client’s needs and is implementable (yes, lasering your client’s logo on the moon is a creative idea – but is it implementable?).

When I run brainstorms, I use an amalgamation of techniques developed from various websites (Mind Tools, WSA International and Forbes are all useful resources), but you can develop your own techniques that suit you and your team:

1. The most important thing is to remember that you are after quantity, not quality – try to limit or prevent negative comments until the end of the meeting, when you can evaluate the ideas and see if you have come up with anything useful
2. Set a time limit – no one can be creative for too long; I find a session of two hours is perfect – it gives you enough time to process, develop and evaluate
3. Make sure you have explained carefully the problem you want to solve, and that everyone understands it in the same way
4. Have food and drink – this acts as an incentive for participants
5. Write down all the ideas where everyone can see them – this sparks more ideas and stimulates discussion, and also means you can come back to old ideas if the ones you select don’t work out
6. Make sure you have people from diverse disciplines – if your brainstorms always involve like-minded people, you won’t think of any out-of-the-box ideas
7. Building on from this diversity, don’t be afraid of a little conflict or argument. I draw the line at fisticuffs, though
8. Concentrate on guiding the discussion rather than dominating with your own ideas – the meeting facilitator has a certain amount of power, and it’s important not to let your own thoughts dictate
9. Try to make it fun – amusing discussions are far nicer to have and more productive
10. Ask people who have been quiet what their thoughts are – try to make sure everyone gets some airtime

Following these techniques makes for a fun two hours at any time, and can actually make that first week of work more bearable.