The concept of brainstorming was first introduced back in 1939, by the American advertiser Alex Osborn. He had thought of an innovative way to generate creative ideas for his clients through teamwork. Since then, brainstorming has been gaining ground in companies and institutions from all spheres, with the aim of accelerating the ideation process.
What exactly makes the originality of brainstorming? There are four main pillars to remember:
- Listening to all ideas as they come
- Mental association
- Prioritizing quantity over quality
- No judging or censoring any ideas
Now, why not dive into your brainstorming sessions to make them more efficient, and get your team to generate even more ideas?
Looking for more efficient brainstorming sessions?
Uneven levels of engagement within the team
Brainstorming sessions can lead to several engagement-related challenges, and especially to an imbalance in how different people speak and share ideas:
- An uninspiring environment for ideation
- Introverts don’t dare to speak up, while extroverts take up all the space
- No directives for ensuring that different people have an opportunity to lead the conversation
- A general lack of motivation in the group
A huge amount of ideas to deal with
As brainstorming sessions are meant to let everybody share what they have in mind, the flow of ideas can quickly get out of control. The thing is, you need to provide clear guidelines for quickly organizing dozens of shared ideas, in order to select the most relevant and actionable ones.
So, how can you go from a bundle of rough ideas to a clear vision of which ideas to keep, refine and realize? How can you get to the crux of the matter, without losing the right ideas on the way? We have the answer!
