Define Brainstorming
Imagine that you are faced with a task and you haven’t got an idea how to solve it. You don’t know what to do or how to fix it. This is the perfect example to define what brainstorming of ideas can do for you. You can solve the problem by having a brainstorming session!
Brainstorming ideas can help you come up with innovative solutions. It can also be useful to fix problems, create multiple options, organize your thoughts and make decisions.
Your process for generating new ideas should be easy and fluid if you are in a creative industry. Even if the ideas seem absurd at first, it is important to generate as many ideas as you can. It’s important to give yourself the time to brainstorm as many ideas as possible, no idea is absurd.
What is the best time to brainstorm?
When there are many options and creative thoughts, brainstorming can be useful. There is no room to criticize in brainstorming. It takes away participation. Spending too much time evaluating ideas is not an innovative idea. You can do this later. This will not slow down the conversation. Keep the discussion moving! While it is fine to ask if you have doubts, it’s better to keep the conversation moving!
The basics of Brainstorming defined
To define a successful benchmarking session requires several basic requirements:
- Everyone must be able to understand the problem at hand.
- Your problem shouldn’t be too complicated or complex.
- Ideally, you’ll want to gather a group of 3 to 10 individuals. A large group is too inconvenient.
Before you start brainstorming, it’s important to identify the problem. The problem should be clearly defined, not too complex, and captured in a clear, SMART question. If the problem is too large, you could break it down into smaller bits.
Brainstorming examples & topics
#1: Nominal Group Technique
Brainstorming is an example of a powerful Six Sigma tool, this technique encourages everyone to participate and have a voice in the session. Participants will be questioned anonymously to share their ideas and brainstorming topics. The moderator will collect all ideas and have the group vote for the best one.
#2: Group Passing Technique
A group of people gather together and share their ideas, each person writing down their own thoughts on a piece of paper or in their heads. The discussions move around the circle as each person adds their own thoughts to what has been previously defined. This method is effective when there are many new ideas, or when you want to get inspiration from your team members.
This procedure is another innovative alternative to brainstorming. The individual will create a list of benchmarking ideas that define the solution to the benchmarking problem, list them on the first page of a book, and send the book to the next person on the distribution list. This method still requires individuals to be able to generate new ideas but they can do it at their convenience.
#3: Individual Brainstorming
This is the practice of brainstorming in a single session. This includes techniques such as free writing, word association, word association, and the spider web, which is a visual note-taking technique that allows people to diagram their thoughts and brainstorm topics.
