Need to come up with great ideas and new solutions to longstanding problems? Bringing a group of your best people together to discuss the situation makes it easy to discover creative approaches that might have otherwise been overlooked!

Boost Your Results with the Benefits of Brainstorming!

Brainstorming isn’t just a great way to come up with original thoughts and inventive plans. The act of brainstorming improves communication between your team members, builds comradery and improves morale. It also makes it easier for them to collaborate and cooperate on future projects, strengthening your team and increasing long-term performance!

Tips to Improve Your Brainstorming Sessions

The following suggestions will help you and your team be more productive during your meeting so that you get the most out of your brainstorming sessions!

Give Your Team Time to Prepare

Give your team plenty of notice before your session. In your announcement, let them know the topic that you will be discussing, along with the time and place of the meeting. Try to choose a location that will allow your participants to be comfortably seated, and that offers some privacy so that everyone feels free to share their thoughts and opinions.  Consider serving some light refreshments before the meeting begins to encourage everyone to relax and feel more comfortable with one another.

Why You Need a Facilitator

Whenever groups of people gather together to talk, it’s easy to become side-tracked and lose focus. Appoint a facilitator to help keep your group on track during their discussion and moderate any comments or opinions that might disrupt the session.

The facilitator should open the meeting by thanking everyone for attending and then stating the purpose of the meeting, such as the problem that you are trying to solve and bringing any ground rules or conditions of the discussion out in the open before it begins. At this stage it is important for the facilitator to encourage everyone to speak in turn, and, to not hold anything back when suggesting ideas. Advise everyone you want to try to list every possible solution or approach to a problem, and that no idea is too silly or insignificant.

Record it All

You should also appoint someone to record the ideas and suggestions that participants come up with during the session. Again, no idea is too small to be considered, so record every suggestion.

When recording the ideas, try to use a method that will enable everyone to see the ideas that the group has suggested. There are several methods you might use, including a white board, chalkboard, old-school poster board and markers, or you could even connect a tablet or other device to a projector to digitally record the suggestions.

Ask Probing Questions if the Session Stalls

If your group doesn’t come up with several ideas to consider, the moderator should ask questions to stimulate additional conversation and ideas.

Filter and Analyse Your List

Once you’ve collected several suggestions, it’s time to consider the pros and cons of each idea. If your brainstorming session went overly long, consider scheduling a second session later to take on this section of the brainstorming process.

Go around the room asking each person for their feedback. Discuss each idea that your group came up with. Ask each person what they like and dislike about each possibility. Keep a record of this information as well so that you don’t waste time covering ground you’ve already crossed in subsequent meetings.  If you have a lot of suggestions to go through, try to narrow your list to the few best solutions.

Second Shot

Once you’ve narrowed your list of possibilities, have your group brainstorm again about how each one could be improved to ensure that you’ve come up with a short list of the best approaches or solutions to the situation.

Give Your Team a Voice

While some situations will require you to go through the list of possibilities on your own, try to give your team a say in whether any proposals that they have submitted will be implemented, especially if it is about something that will directly impact the way in which they carry out their daily activities.

If you can only implement one or two suggestions and you still have a lengthy list, allow your team to vote on which ones they prefer to increase their autonomy. Sharing this power with your team also improves morale, team cohesiveness, long-term satisfaction with your organisation and their performance!