Brainstorming
Posted on 21 December 2009
The following post is taken from our whitepaper *Planning and Creating a Digital Strategy*.
There is no single way to run the perfect brainstorming session; the combination of the people involved, company culture and the aims of the digital strategy will make certain approaches more productive than others. The following are a few suggestions to get the most out of brainstorming sessions:
Nominate a chair
Nominate one person to collate all participants, to run the meeting and to circulate resultant ideas from the brainstorming session.
Get the right mix of people
Participants from similar backgrounds will come up with similar ideas and result in a stifled brainstorming session and limited creativity. Also, the balance of participant characters helps; they should have the correct mix of experience, creativity and enthusiasm to pitch their ideas.
Brainstorming groups should be between 5 and 7 people: less than 5 and the number of ideas will be limited; more than seven and the sessions are likely to be unwieldy.
Preparation is King
Pass all materials out before the brainstorming session and inform participants that they are expected to enter into the joint session with ideas. Isolated brainstorming sessions have been shown to contribute some of the best initial ideas, but running both isolated and joint brainstorming sessions can allow these ideas can be nurtured.
Set out the rules
All participants should be given the chance to contribute to the session (thus the prior preparation). Participants should be actively encouraged to announce ideas as they have them. The purpose of the brainstorming session is quantity not quality; piggybacking off of others ideas to combine or extend should be encouraged (whilst still allowing everyone to participate).
No Criticism
During the ideas gathering stage there are no such things as bad ideas. Criticism encourages participants to retreat from ideas and stifles creativity.
Note all ideas down
Ideas should be recorded, ideally to a flipchart or whiteboard. This will allow all ideas to be reviewed by all participants. This also shows the ideas route, how they evolved and upon review may result in further combinations and extension of ideas.
Once all ideas have been generated each idea should be evaluated in terms of brief pros and cons, costs and benefits, feasibility etc. These will determine which ideas are pushed for a formal evaluation across both the merits of the idea against the aims of the digital strategy in terms of engagement and cost.
To view the full whitepaper please see the post *Planning and Creating a Digital Strategy*.
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