Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Brainstorming is a process for developing creative solutions to problems. It works by focusing on a problem, and then deliberately coming up with as many solutions as possible and by pushing the ideas as far as possible. One of the reasons it is so effective is that the brainstormers not only come up with new ideas in a session, but also spark off from associations with other people's ideas by developing and refining them.
Brainstorming Steps:
>Gather the participants from as wide a range of disciplines with as broad a range of experience as possible. This brings many more creative ideas to the session.
>Write down a brief description of the problem - the leader should take control of the session, initially defining the problem to be solved with any criteria that must be met, and then keeping the session on course.
>Use the description to get everyone's mind clear of what the problem is and post it where it can be seen. This helps in keeping the group focused.
>Encourage an enthusiastic, uncritical attitude among brainstormers and encourage participation by all members of the team. Encourage them to have fun!
Write down all the solutions that come to mind (even ribald ones).
>Do NOT interpret the idea, however you may rework the wording for clarity's sake.
>Do NOT evaluate ideas until the session moves to the evaluation phase. Once the brainstorming session has been completed, the results of the session can be analyzed and the best solutions can be explored either using further brainstorming or more conventional solutions.
>Do NOT censor any solution, no matter how silly it sounds. The silly ones will often lead to creative ones - the idea is to open up as many possibilities as possible, and break down preconceptions about the limits of the problem.
>The leader should keep the brainstorming on subject, and should try to steer it towards the development of some practical solutions.
>Once all the solutions have been written down, evaluate the list to determine the best action to correct the problem.

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