Brainstorming When You Use It • When you have a defined task and want to generate many, varied or unusual ideas/options • You will need - a Problem Owner who is responsible for the content, the ideas of the session - a Facilitator to look after the process, how the group goes about generating the ideas - flipcharts with sufficient paper, markers and masking tape to record the ideas How You Use It • Brainstorming is a widely used creativity tool, and also the most misunderstood and misused! • To brainstorm effectively - the Facilitator explains and writes up the rules of brainstorming for everyone to follow - the Problem Owner gives a very brief background to the task and answers any factual questions the group may have - the group then generates ideas which are recorded on flipcharts as they are generated, literally and legibly - The facilitator records the ideas and polices the rules (and checks with the problem owner every 10-15 minutes that the session is going in the right direction) Rules Of Brainstorming • D efer judgement - of others ideas - and of your own • Look to generate many ideas • Look for wild and different ideas - freewheel • Build on others ideas • All ideas are recorded and numbered What It Gives You • Many idea fragments which will need to be evaluated and developed further - usually in a separate session • Be prepared to lay aside a lot of them - while all ideas have value, the value of 80% of the ideas generated in a typical session is that they stimulated the remaining 20% Additional Tips • Encourage and ensure that all group members contribute ideas • Where time is short (or there are many ideas on a particular issue all coming at once), ask the group to write their idea on a post-it note and place it on the flip chart • Where problems are tough and intractable consider using Interactive Innovation™ -a proprietary technique of ours - trained facilitators for these sessions exist in all our offices (ask your training leader for details)