Don's Home Business Brainstorming |
Brainstorming sometimes called whiteboarding is a way generate ideas and come up with creative solutions to problems. We've used in business, but I used it with a group junior high kids at a church retreat where we had to come up with a way to put on a skit to demonstrate a bible passage. We also used it in the Sierra Club to come up with ideas to recruit younger members.
Conventional group problem solving can often be undermined by unhelpful group behavior. It uses rules to keep extroverts from supressing ideas from introverts.
Brainstorming combines a relaxed, informal approach to problem solving with lateral thinking. It encourages people to come up with thoughts and ideas that can, at first, seem a bit crazy. Some of these ideas can be crafted into original, creative solutions to a problem, while others can spark even more ideas. This helps to get people unstuck by "jolting" them out of their normal ways of thinking.
Several studies have shown that individual brainstorming produces more - and often better - ideas than group brainstorming. Once you get an initial list you may want to make a 2nd cut. Some peoples ideas may generate ideas in others.
Then come up with a way of evaluating the list. Cost, Benefit, Risk, Need vs Want, ...
Rules or guideposts
Finally evaluate the list. Links: Brainstorming - Creativity Techniques from MindTools.com Brainstorming - Wikipedia Better Brainstorming | Harvard Business Review |