I love new ideas!
Ideas, ideas, ideas. They’re fun to think about, expand, and explore. I’ve been brainstorming non-stop since joining Mindjet. Mind mapping and brainstorming make powerful partners.
For instance, I’ve fully incorporated brainstorming into my blogging practices. I’ll never run out of ideas for future posts! Thanks to Problogger’s Darren Rowse, showed me how in his month long series on how to write better blogs.
The secret? Brainstorming with Mind Maps.
How can group brainstorming be as effective as individual work?
It’s pretty easy for me to sit down and start mapping something out for myself. As I wrote yesterday, it’s harder to do it with a team. But, it’s worth the effort. There is something magical about the creative process, especially when the dynamics of your team creates positive synergy!
Here are some rules and tips to help make your next group brainstorming session a success.
Five basic rules for team brainstorming
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Stress quantity over quality
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Encourage wild ideas
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Suspend judgment
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Ignore seniority
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Forbid evaluation of ideas
Eight Tips for Effective Team Brainstorming
Robert Sutton, professor at Stanford’s School of Engineering, a co-founder of the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford ("The d.school"), offers these tips on group brainstorming.
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Use brainstorming to combine and extend ideas, not just to harvest ideas.
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Don’t bother if people live in fear. Understand if your organizational culture supports brainstorming or if it is doomed to fail.
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Do individual brainstorming before and after group sessions.
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Brainstorming sessions are worthless unless they are woven with other work practices like observing users, talking to experts, or building prototype products.
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Brainstorming requires skill and experience both to do and, especially, to facilitate.
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A good brainstorming session is competitive—in the right way.
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Use brainstorming sessions for more than just generating good ideas.
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Follow the rules, or don’t call it a brainstorm.
Dig in deeper for a more in-depth review of Robert’s tips.
Did I miss any tips? Please share your tips below!
Related Mindjet Posts
About the Author: Michael Deutch is Mindjet’s Chief Evangelist, content contributor for the Mindjet Blog and the Mindjet Connections newsletter. Get more from Michael on Twitter.
[...] all heard some variation on the rules of brainstorming [...]
interesting article i suggest using mind mapping with a graphic facilitator/recorder to improve the brainstorming process. this means the group can focus on the ideas and an outside source can capture all the ideas for you fully!
Paul Telling
Creative Communications Creator and Graphic Facilitator
Pauls Site
Visualise and Monetise!