Your Two Minute Brainstorming Refresher

Do you need to help your team, employees, focus group, family , or yourself quickly and freely come up with a whole bunch of new ideas?Brainstorming is used to quickly generate many new ideas.  The ideas are fresh, untested, and not yet researched.  And starting with a big pool of many new ideas can help infuse new life into a project, business, or your own personal plan.

When To Use Brainstorming

When you need a lot of creative, out-of-the-box ideas to sort through to decide how to proceed on a project or you need to elicit a bunch of responses from a group.

Before Brainstorming

1. Decide exactly what you want to brainstorm about (see The Brainstorming Question below).  Refining the topic is important!
2. Remind your group: NO criticism, playing opposites, doubt, or "have you tried...".
3. Remind your group: Brainstorming statements are directive, stated in the positive, and the best ones contain a specific action/ answer to your question.

During Brainstorming

1. Write your question where all your brainstormers can see it.  Even if it's a short question/ topic, make it easy to refer back to.
2. Have a note taker write down or type up each answer, for review later.
3. Welcome every idea, even when it contains a misunderstanding or something you know won't work.
4. Encourage more ideas.  Quantity over quality.
5. Don't quit after the first slow part.  Keep going!

The Brainstorming Question

 In how many ways can I/ we.......? 

What Else

Many thanks to speaker and author Gregg Levoy for reminders about this topic in a recent talk he did.  And comment below or write me to tell me how you used brainstorming with your group!