A Stage of Brainstorming Ideas and Concepts for a Specific Work of Art Term

Brainstorming is the nigh ofttimes practiced form of ideation. Nosotros recommend that you use it along with Brainwriting, Brainwalking, and Braindumping. Here, you'll acquire the best practices from the very best experts from d-schoolhouse and IDEO as well of the father of the Brainstorming technique, Alex Osborn.

Brainstorming is a great way to generate a lot of ideas that you would non be able to generate by just sitting down with a pen and paper. The intention of brainstorming is to leverage the collective thinking of the grouping, by engaging with each other, listening, and edifice on other ideas. Conducting a brainstorm also creates a distinct segment of time when you lot intentionally plough up the generative part of your encephalon and pass up the evaluative part. You can use brainstorming throughout whatever design or work process, of course, to generate ideas for design solutions, only as well any time yous are trying to generate ideas, such as planning where to do empathy work, or thinking most product and services related to your project.

Acquire the Best Practices from the Experts Themselves

Here, you lot'll acquire the best practices from the very best experts from d-school and IDEO also of the father of the Brainstorming technique, Alex Osborn. IDEO is a hugely successful international pattern and consulting firm, which uses the Design Thinking methodology to advance innovative pattern in products, services, environments, and digital experiences. The d.schoolhouse celebrates Design Thinking, and it's i of the most – if not the nearly – celebrated and recognised sources on Design Thinking and ideation techniques. d.school is a blueprint school based in Stanford University in cooperation with the German Hasso Plattner Institute of the University of Potsdam.

Brainstorming (or just 'begin', for brusque) has remained the cornerstone of the creative industry for decades and has evolved over the years equally experience and learning developed from its variety of applications. Brainstorming essentially relies on a group of people coming together with their prior cognition and enquiry in club to gather ideas for solving the stated problem. Information technology evokes images of exploration, experimental thinking, and wild ideas. However, all besides often it takes the grade of controlled sessions where dominant figures affirm themselves over others and creativity ends upwardly getting stifled. Or, in other cases, the facilitator does not succeed in helping the squad steer towards the goal by keeping the user, the user'due south need and the team'south insights about them in a trouble statement – also called Point of View – at the front of the squad'south minds.

In the following, nosotros'll let you in on some amazing brainstorm rules which will assist proceed you lot from falling into these traps, and instead facilitate innovative and effective brainstorming sessions.

Best Do Rules for Constructive Brainstorming

Author/Copyright holder: Teo Yu Siang and Interaction Design Foundation. Copyright terms and licence: CC BY-NC-SA three.0

Idea generation, or Ideation, is an fine art form, which is dependent on appointing an experienced facilitator and having an experienced team. Still, we're all here to learn, and here is how you can start learning to become a successful facilitator of brainstorming sessions. Brainstorming is most setting a safe, creative space for people to experience similar they tin say anything and exist wild—and know that they volition not be judged for doing so—so that new ideas can be born. The post-obit are some rules, principles, and suggestions so yous can brand brainstorming sessions much more than user-oriented, effective, innovative – and fun.

ane. Fix a time limit

d-schoolhouse emphasises that the facilitator has to be intentional nigh setting bated a period when your squad volition be in "brainstorm mode". In this time frame, information technology'due south the sole goal to come upwards with every bit many ideas as possible, and during this period judgements of those ideas are prohibited. Typically, a Brainstorm volition take around 15-hour. It can be shorter or longer, depending on the difficulty of the problem and the motivation and experience of the grouping.

All-time practice tip:

"Invest energy into a short period of time, such every bit 15 or xxx minutes of loftier engagement. Go in forepart of a whiteboard or effectually a table, but have an active posture of continuing or sitting upright. Become shut together."
– dschool, Bootcamp Bootleg

2. Start with a problem statement, Point of View, How Might We questions, a program or a goal – and stay focused on the topic

Alex Osborn, the begetter of the Brainstorming technique, emphasises that brainstorming sessions should e'er address a specific question or problem statement (also called a Point of View) equally sessions addressing multiple questions are inefficient. Begin with a skillful problem statement or question. Blueprint Thinkers and other ideation specialists take further developed this approach into the art of framing problem statements via methods. Specifically, these are "How Might We" questions.

You tin can read and download the total guides beneath about how you tin can ascertain your problem argument by using the Design Thinking method called Point Of View and how you can start ideating by asking "How Might We" questions:

Get your gratuitous template for "Bespeak of View - Trouble Statement"

Get your costless template for "How Might We Questions"

All-time practice tip:

"Write down clearly what you lot are brainstorming. Using a 'How Might We' (HMW) question is a great way to frame a begin (e.g. HMW give each shopper a personal checkout experience?)."
– dschool, Bootcamp Bootleg

three. Defer judgement or criticism, including non-verbal

The facilitator should always set up a positive, unthreatening tone and tell participants to reserve criticism for a later critical stage in the ideation process. A Brainstorming session is not the fourth dimension and the place to evaluate ideas, and you should avoid executional details. It's crucial that participants are feeling confident by existence in a condom environment so they have no fear of being judged by others when they put frontward wild ideas. You lot should create equal opportunities for all participants. The best ideas often come from practitioners, students, and people who cartel to think differently – and non necessarily only from the highly skilled and experienced managers.

"Have playful rules: Critiquing or debating ideas can chop-chop sap the energy of a session. Many IDEO conference rooms take brainstorming rules stenciled in vi-inch-high letters on the walls; for example, 'Get for quantity,' 'Encourage wild ideas,' 'Defer judgment,' or 'One conversation at a time.'"
– IDEO, The IDEO Deviation

Best practice tip: The facilitator should append judgement. This way, participants will experience free to generate unusual ideas. Equally a facilitator, yous will observe that it can even be a great idea to prohibit the word "no". You'll be surprised to run across how constructive this tool is and how it helps open upwardly minds and creates a collaborative, curious, and friendly ideation environment. And yous'll find that it's pretty fun too when team members have to initially say "yes" to even the weirdest ideas. Giving out half-thought-out ideas or foreign suggestions is normally not socially accepted, is socially frowned on and leads to people belongings back in normal situations. Brainstorming deliberately gives permission to exist "stupid" and "child-similar".

"Creative spaces don't judge. They permit the ideas catamenia, so that people tin build on each other and foster great ideas. You never know where a skillful idea is going to come from, the key is brand everyone feel like they tin say the thought on their mind and permit others to build on it."
– OpenIDEO, seven Tips on Ameliorate Brainstorming

4. Encourage weird, wacky, and wild ideas

These new ways of thinking might requite you amend solutions.

"Information technology is easier to tone down a wild idea than to think up a new one."
– Alex Osborn, the father of the Brainstorming technique

"Wild ideas tin ofttimes give rise to creative leaps. In thinking nigh ideas that are wacky or out in that location nosotros tend to think most what we really want without the constraints of technology or materials. We tin can and so take those magical possibilities and perchance invent new technologies to evangelize them."
– OpenIDEO, seven Tips on Ameliorate Brainstorming

5.Aim for quantity

Aim for as many new ideas as possible. The assumption is that the greater the number of ideas y'all generate, the bigger your chance is of producing a radical and effective solution. Brainstorming celebrates the maxim "quantity breeds quality".

6.Build on each others' ideas

As suggested by the slogan "i+1=3", Brainstorming stimulates the building of ideas by a process of clan. Embrace the almost out-of-the-box notions and build, build, build. Be positive and build on the ideas of others. Brainstorming works well when participants utilize each other's ideas to trigger their ain thinking. Our minds are highly associative. One thought easily triggers some other. When we use the thoughts of others, then these will stop united states getting trapped past our own thinking structures.

All-time practice tip: Try to say and encourage others to say "and" instead of "but". Information technology takes practice, merely this piddling fob works surprisingly well.

seven. Exist visual

Best practice tip: At IDEO, they encourage you lot to use coloured markers to write on Post-its and put them on the wall—or sketch your thought. Nothing gets an idea across faster than cartoon it. It doesn't affair how terrible of a sketcher you are! It'south all about the thought backside your sketch. And d.school has ii not bad ideas for you:

"There are at least ii ways to capture the ideas of a brainstorming:
ane. Scribe: the scribe legibly and visually captures on the board ideas that squad members call out. It is very important to capture every idea, regardless of your ain feelings almost each idea.
two. All-in: Each person will write downwards each of his or her ideas as they come, and verbally share information technology with the group. It is great to practice this with post-it notes, and then you tin can write your idea and and so stick it on the board."
– dschool, Bootcamp Bootleg

viii. One conversation at a fourth dimension

Listen to each other and elaborate on each other's ideas. Don't become obsessed with your own ideas. You're here to ideate together.

Yous can download and impress our template with the viii rules for constructive Brainstorming and use it as your and your squad'southward guide:

Become your free template for "Brainstorm - 8 Rules"

Should you Forget Brainstorming?

Brainstorm, as great as it can exist, has some obvious weaknesses, about of them human factors. Whenever a group of people gets together to work collectively on annihilation, we inevitably observe some members dominating over others. Introverts take a back seat and prefer working away in a quieter self-reflective manner, while extroverts, peculiarly egoistical ones, put a stake in the ground and try to ain the show. Inquiry published in the Authoritative Science Quarterly in 1958, Does Group Participation When Using Brainstorming Facilitate or Inhibit Creative Thinking?, seeks to understand whether private brainstorming or group brainstorming sessions produce amend results. A storm of debate ensued in 2010 when News Week posted an commodity referencing this enquiry and making a phone call to "Forget Brainstorming "with others rebuffing this claim and affirming "Don't Forget: Brainstorming Works". Though the results of the report were based on express parameters, they do indicate that if group-brainstorming weather condition are not properly met, they can fail more easily.

We agree that poorly facilitated face-to-face brainstorms practice stifle creativity. We concur that, fifty-fifty when brainstorming is done right, people could sometimes still generate ideas faster when they piece of work solitary. However, if y'all want creativity, information technology'due south a major mistake to keep your team members in alone confinement where they can't "waste time" listening to and building on the ideas of others.

Here's the problem: Most pieces of research on brainstorming are rigorous but irrelevant to the challenge of managing artistic work. For starters, comparing whether creativity happens all-time in groups or alone is pretty silly when yous wait at how creative work is actually done. At creative companies similar IDEO, people switch betwixt both modes so seamlessly that it is hard to observe where private work ends and grouping piece of work starts.

Should Your Team Brainstorm equally a Grouping or as Individuals?

Best practice: Switching between the ii modes of individual and collective ideation sessions can be seamless—and highly productive. Alex Osborn's 1950s classic Applied Imagination gave advice that is however relevant: Inventiveness comes from a blend of individual and collective ideation.

Brainstorming (group sessions) has three siblings which y'all should get to know: Braindumping (private sessions), Brainwriting (a mix of individual and grouping sessions) and Brainwalking (another mix of private and group sessions).

It'due south often a good idea to practise individual ideation sessions similar braindumping, brainwriting and brainwalking before and afterward brainstorming grouping sessions.

Braindump – Individual Brainstorm

Author/Copyright holder: Teo Yu Siang and Interaction Blueprint Foundation. Copyright terms and licence: CC Past-NC-SA iii.0

One of the best ways to progress to more advanced levels of ideation is to kickoff past getting everything that'south currently bottleneck the neural pathways out in the open and freeing up some cognitive infinite for other synapses, connections, and mixtures to go through. David Allen, writer of the world famous "Getting Things Done" methodology, swears past the braindump as a means to gratis up mental energy and allow freethinking. Holding onto your own thoughts, unfinished tasks, or unexplored ideas creates mental blockages and prevents freethinking. Furthermore, Braindump is an amazing technique to help quiet employees get a voice.

Best practice

• If you were the facilitator, you'd brief ideation participants upfront on the trouble statement, goals and important insights from previous research and findings.
• Then ask all participants to write downward their ideas as they come up.
• It's important that each participant does this individually – and silently.
• Provide participants with sheets of newspaper, thought cards or traditional Post-it notes. Gluey notes are groovy, because they allow people to write their ideas down individually – one idea per note.
• Give participants between iii and x minutes to go ideas they have been thinking of off their chests.
• Afterwards reaching the time limit of approximately iii-10 minutes, each participant will say a few words about his or her ideas and stick them on a board or wall. You should avoid initial discussions about notes when squad members are presenting them. Ideas that come out of early braindump sessions should be shared verbally with the entire team in lodge to spark new streams of thinking or combinations of ideas.
• While sticking the ideas upwards and presenting them, the group will also group duplicates together.
• When all squad members have presented their ideas, you can select the best ideas, which you tin continue to build and elaborate on in other ideation sessions. There are diverse methods you can use such as "Post-it Voting", "Four Categories", "Bingo Selection", "Vi Thinking Hats", and "Now Wow How Matrix".

You lot can download and print the template where we've summarised how to create a successful Braindump session:

Get your free template for "Braindump"

Writer/Copyright holder: Victor Roa. Copyright terms and licence: CC By 2.0

Sticky notes are great for braindump sessions, because they allow people to write their ideas down individually – one idea per note. After reaching the fourth dimension limit of approximately 3-x minutes, each participant will say a few words most his or her ideas and stick them on a board or wall.

Brainwriting

Author/Copyright holder: Teo Yu Siang and Interaction Blueprint Foundation. Copyright terms and licence: CC By-NC-SA 3.0

Brainwriting is a technique where participants write ideas onto cards and then laissez passer their idea cards on to the adjacent person, moving those cards effectually the group in a circle as participants build on the ideas of others. Participants perform this technique in consummate silence—and they are forced to build on, instead of criticise, other participants' ideas. The wheel can be repeated multiple times and can be practical to chunks of the problem being addressed, depending on the need. The beauty of brainwriting is that information technology levels the playing field immediately, and it removes many of the obstacles of group brainstorming. With traditional verbal brainstorming, the number of ideas which tin be expressed at one time is limited, and the time it takes to become through a number of ideas is much longer, which results in many participants forgetting or becoming confused while others shout out ideas. This is especially then for those who are shy or introverted or who may be at a disadvantage due to being less senior or unfamiliar with the specialisations beingness discussed.

Brainwriting is an first-class starting point for ideation sessions, and can serve as a means to maximise the initial braindump, or every bit a mode to refocus if other ideation methods get haywire. Before the anarchy of grouping ideation muddles people's thinking, help them go their initial thoughts out in the open with an introductory brainwriting session and use the results later to build on further with other techniques.

Best Practice

• If yous were the facilitator, you'd cursory ideation participants upfront on the problem statement, goals and of import user insights from previous research and findings.
• Encourage participants to jot downwards ideas on their idea cards for 3-five minutes earlier passing on their ideas when yous brand the call.
• Ideally, participants laissez passer on idea cards 3-10 times depending on the problem statement and goals.
• This all happens silently and without any interference or advice.
• Encourage participants to push themselves for more ideas at least a couple of times, in the few minutes they have, in order to maximize the output and variation.
• You lot should stoke the session with encouragement and provide questions or statements which push participants to think outside of their comfort zones.
• The bicycle can be repeated multiple times and can exist practical to chunks of the problem being addressed, depending on the need.
• After catastrophe the wheel, each participant will briefly verbally nowadays the thoughts on the thought carte he/she ends up with by the end of the cycle to the balance of the team—in gild to spark new streams of thinking or combinations of ideas. If you were the facilitator, you lot would oft be taking notes on a white board.
• When all team members have presented their idea cards, you can select the best ideas which you can go along to build and elaborate on in other ideation sessions. At that place are various methods yous can use such every bit "Post-information technology Voting", "Four Categories", "Bingo Pick"and "Now Wow How Matrix".

You can download and print the template where we've summarised how to create a successful Brainwriting session:

Get your free template for "Brainwrite"

Brainwalking

Author/Copyright holder: Teo Yu Siang and Interaction Design Foundation. Copyright terms and licence: CC By-NC-SA 3.0

Yes, you read it correctly—don't worry, though; information technology doesn't involve soles touching souls. Brainwalking is very similar to brainwriting with one small but highly impactful difference. Instead of passing idea cards or notes from one participant to some other, participants have to get up from their seats and movement to another spot around the brainstorming table or even to another table altogether. Bryan Mattimore came up with this technique; he'due south a specialist in the art of ideation and facilitation. Mattimore has many years and thousands of sessions of experience conducting ideation sessions. In his book Idea Stormers, he describes brainwalking equally the: 'single best technique to utilise to brainstorm an ideation session'.

Brainwalking gets people out of their seats, gets them moving, keeps energy levels up and mixes things upward plenty so that the grouping as a whole does not get stuck delving too long downwardly the same one-way street, without a quick exit or U turn available. Brainwalking works best when information technology is easy to flip or to kickoff from scratch.

You can download and print the template where we've described the all-time practice for creating a Brainwalking session:

Get your free template for "Brainwalk"

As we can run into, one ideation method leads to another, and another… and the methods themselves are areas open to artistic interpretation and disruption.

Know Your History

Alex Osborn was an advertising executive who created the technique we know today as brainstorming. He invented the technique as a response to the stifling surround of executive meetings and with the goal of freeing upward creative thinking in order to facilitate ideas to menstruum more easily. Alex Osborn presented the brainstorming technique in his volume, How To Think Up. Alex Osborn authored several books on group artistic thinking, including Your Creative Power , How to Organize a Team to Create Ideas and Practical Imagination, and he was a pioneer in the field, laying the ground for what we call ideation today.

Alex Osborn adult a arrangement that still applies to our modernistic ideation methods and includes such principles as deferring judgement or criticism and aiming for a larger quantity of ideas every bit opposed to a focus on quality. He also impresses the importance of an experienced facilitator and on combining grouping brainstorming with split up individual ideation sessions. Equally much as the modernistic agreement of brainstorming may conjure upwardly ideas of randomised chaos with an untrained, poorly facilitated group merely shouting out whatever comes to mind, the technique Osborn adult has many rules and principles, which demand to be respected in order to achieve success.

"Creativity is more than mere imagination. Information technology is imagination inseparably coupled with both intent and endeavour."
– Alex Osborn

The Have Away

Brainstorming is the almost ofttimes skilful course of ideation. We recommend that you mix it with Brainwriting, Brainwalking and Braindumping and other ideation methods. Idea generation is an art form, which is dependent on appointing an experienced facilitator and having an experienced team. Notwithstanding, we're all here to learn, and hither is how y'all can outset learning to become a successful facilitator of ideation sessions. Ideation sessions are nearly setting a safe, creative infinite for people to feel like they tin say anything, be wild, and not be judged – so that new relevant ideas can exist born. The following are the rules, principles and suggestions to help you make brainstorming and other initial ideation sessions much more effective:

1. Fix a time limit.
2. First with a question, a programme or a goal – and stay focused on the topic.
3. Defer sentence or criticism, including non-exact.
4. Encourage weird, wacky and wild ideas.
5. Aim for quantity.
6. Build on each others' ideas.
7. Be visual.
8. Permit one conversation at a time.

References & Where to Learn More than

Hero Image: Author/Copyright holder: visualpun.ch. Copyright terms and licence: CC Past-SA 2.0

OpenIDEO, 7 Tips on Better Brainstorming, 2011:

https://challenges.openideo.com/blog/seven-tips-on...

IDEO, The IDEO Difference, by Catherine Fredman, 2002: https://world wide web.ideo.com/images/uploads/news/pdfs/hemi...

Alex Osborn, How To Think Upwards, 1942

Alex Osborn, Applied Imagination, 1953

d.school, bootcamp leg, https://dschool.stanford.edu/resource/the-bootcamp-boo...

Donald W. Taylor, Paul C. Berry and Clifford H. Block, Does Group Participation When Using Brainstorming Facilitate or Inhibit Creative Thinking? In Administrative Science Quarterly Vol. iii, No. 1, Folio 23-47, 1958:

www.jstor.org/stable/2390603

Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman. Forget Brainstorming, 7/12/2010: http://www.newsweek.com/forget-brainstorming-74223

Jonathan Vehar. Don't forget: Brainstorming works!, 2010:

http://www.innovationmanagement.se/imtool-manufactures...

David Allen, Five Simple Steps that Apply Club to Anarchy: http://gettingthingsdone.com/fivesteps/

Dave Gray. Brainwriting. Gamestorming A toolkit for innovators, dominion-breakers and changemakers, 2010:

http://gamestorming.com/games-for-design/brainwrit...

Bryan W. Mattimore, Idea Stormers: How to Lead and Inspire Creative Breakthroughs, 2012

Tim Chocolate-brown, CEO of IDEO, Alter by Design, 2009

diazothey1989.blogspot.com

Source: https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/topics/brainstorming