Brainstorming exercises are some of the most creative and productive activities. We use them for strategic planning, problem solving, and career planning. So why does brainstorming have such a poor reputation? Too often they become awkward and uncomfortable. They can be confusing discussions with undefined goals or dominated by one or two individuals with strong opinions that run rough shod over the rest of the group. The goal of brainstorming is to create an understanding of a situation or problem and identify next steps to achieving some goal; otherwise, the session is deserving of that poor reputation.
The key to facilitating a positive brainstorming session is to ensure that there is a common well understood goal for the team during the session and explain the method that you’ll be using. It’s also important to explain why and how the method works. I’ve been in meetings that never got started because the facilitator spent the whole meeting answering questions about methods, goals, and effectiveness. Running these sessions require experience and skill. Spend the time learning these skills or hire someone to run the meetings.
Many people cringe at the mention of “mind maps”, fishbone diagrams, or SIPOCs. It is a common mistake to assume that there are no actions that follow these sessions. People sit in a room and stare at some “visually stimulating” image of corporate speak and they never hear about the discussion again. Facilitators need to follow up with the brainstorming team to communicate actions and progress.
Cultural hostility to accountability or structure can also be a challenge. Several years ago I was leading a business process team that used Six Sigma as a methodology. We were working in a large organization which thought that “process” was a dirty word and didn’t want to be constrained by bureaucracy. To define and improve processes, we had to hide the templates we used and run the sessions as if there was no structure. After we got the needed information from the team we’d run back to our office and put our notes into templates that helped us organize the information and developed action plans. After one project, I shared some of the completed brainstorming templates (SIPOC, Functional Deployment Map, and Mind Map) with one of the team members. He said “my goodness, we really did this…and its so organized. That’s awesome”. Before we took this approach, people would spend the entire meeting calling into question the methods and tools we were using. The projects were sunk before they started.
One of the primary roles of a leader is to be able to communicate a vision so crisply that everyone can understand and take action on it. Brainstorming tools are a great way to hone these messages. They are powerful tools to draw out and build on a team’s thoughts and ideas. Dr. Bob Sutton posted a blog article, A Different Way of Thinking about Brainstorming, that has a couple of excellent article links, one about some ways to think about brainstorming, the other about how to manage brainstorming. Start using the different tools and give me examples of how you use them and your successes and challenges.
Recent Comments