The world around us is constantly changing. Which demands us to keep improving or enhancing our services, products or at times the work culture. If you are required to start a change initiative then you’re going to need a lot of ideas. Eventually only one idea will help you bring the change. But reaching to that one idea is not an easy matter. You might step into a puddle of ideas, still it can feel like the most amazing thing is missing.
You might get disappointed knowing this fact that not all ideas you need are going to appear in your own mind. Yes, that’s true. Yet, you should not be extremely sad about it, because you have got wonderful tools to overcome this problem.
One such most promising tool is Brainstorming. A brainstorming session can be fun if driven well and you can get astonishing results out of it.
Prepare for the Brainstorming
A great preparation is always one of the crucial keys to success. So, a great brainstorming session as well need a good preparation.
In order to prepare well, you should be able to identify – The problem statement, Key people/stakeholders and a Suitable format to collect ideas.
The problem statement
You should have a clear problem statement to direct brainstorming in right direction. If the session will have a diversified focus then you are most likely to lose the stake. There could be cases where you would intentionally allow participants to bring extremely open ended ideas. However, it is not recommended to conduct brainstorming with an ambiguous problem statement. Let’s try to understand why in upcoming sections.
Key people and stakeholders
Once you know what is your problem statement then you should identify people who can contribute their perspective. You can choose to invite as many people as possible or you can choose a handful number of people. Depends on what seems appropriate and doable. Recommendation is, invite a lot of people to the session because it will boost the number of opinions as well.
Suitable format to collect ideas
You also need to choose a format to conduct brainstorming session. I am very selective about my tools for conducting sessions and I might undergo a small self-brainstorming at this stage. Though, I would not suggest you to do a lot of experiments with the format until you have conducted some sessions in past. You can simply get some sticky notes, markers or pend and a wall board to post the sticky notes.
Conducting the brainstorming
First things first – Make your participants comfortable.
They should be able to trust you and rest of the participants before you start with the session. No one would like to be frowned at for a “stupid idea”. So, you as a facilitator, should not assume that everyone understands that “no idea is stupid”. It is always a good practice to set the stage by reminding the rules we will abide by. For example, you can mention that ideas will be anonymously captured and discussed.
Set the stage for the participants
Now explain the problem to the participants and ensure that they are clear about your problem statement. You might need to encourage them to ask their doubts so that they are finely connected to the topic. This activity will ensure that participants are attentive about the details. After this you should give them enough time to think and post their ideas on the board you have prepared. It would be great if you do not influence them or hint your opinion.
Collecting the ideas
This might surprise you that in brainstorming sessions quantity is more powerful than quality. You should encourage your participants to come up with as many ideas as they can. You would be amazed to see the results. I like those walls full of sticky notes. That’s where that one idea will be fluttering which made you to do all this arrangement.
Stimulating more storm in the session
The story doesn’t end here. Now you need to start going through the wall full of sticky notes. Sounds tiring, specially if you are lucky enough to get abundance of responses out of your session. You should not stop yourself from sweating over the sticky notes thoroughly, this is going to be rewarding for sure. You should be very careful while you scan the inputs.
Organizing the collected ideas
The good idea is to collate sticky notes and form some categories. This would help you conduct a structured discussion and you are most likely to get right outcome. You still need the help of your participants to understand their collective opinion about the ideas. At this point you might think that even a single person can decide which ideas will work and which ones won’t, and that single person can be you as well.
Well, you are right, but there is a catch. If you read a statement written by other person, chances are high that you discard it without really understanding. Secondly, as of now the participants are not aware of what other people have written on the board. Once they are exposed to more ideas, either they will have a better view of their own opinion or they will have another new opinion in response to this new information. In layman’s words this step is going to churn the sea, and you can not do it alone.
Let’s move back to the wall of ideas.
Capturing the relevant ideas
Traverse through the cluster of notes, you might like to order the categories on relevance and start to read from the most relevant cluster. Take each sticky note and run it by this simple heuristic: “Does it help with the (Problem statement)?”. If so, keep it. If not, ditch it.
This is the point where you or the forum is most likely to move away from the actual problem because you are diving in an ocean of ideas.
Identifying the best idea or ideas
At this stage quality should be your and forum’s priority. A lot of refinement is required at this stage as well, because you would never want to dump a great idea. With very careful consideration now you should be able to pick only those ideas which make more sense to your problem statement. If you are at a point where it is hard to pick just one, then it would be great to assign them a priority number based on participants votes.
There could be many variables to your problem statement which also should be considered before choosing or dropping the ideas.
Brainstorming is a very effective tool to generate many ideas in a group layout. We should maintain mutual trust and respect during the entire session. As we conclude, the results should give the participants a sense of accomplishment. It would be a kind gesture to close the brainstorming session asking their experience.
