BRAINSTORMING

Some business concepts are ingrained into everyday corporate life that it is hard to imagine a time when the concept did not exist. Brainstorming is one such concept.

Almost unbelievably, this year marks the 60^th anniversary of the publication of Your Creative Power by Alex Osborn in which the concept was first revealed to the world at large. Osborn was one of the founders of BBDO, still one of the most important advertising agencies in the world, and where the brainstorming technique had been successfully used since 1939.

Osborn’s believed that brainstorming could significantly increase the creativity of individuals and companies. In one regularly repeated statistic, he said that brainstorming lead to the generation of 44% more worthwhile ideas than individuals on their own  - although the statistic itself has no firm scientific basis.

Although the term brainstorming has become to mean a generic throwing around of ideas, Osborn’s brainstorming is actually a very well defined process.  Central to Osborn’s model for brainstorming are four key ideas: 

The were also other requirements. Each group should have five to 10 participants, of mixed experience levels, and the meeting led by a trained chairperson, with ideas committed to paper. The meeting should last only 30 to 45 minutes. However, he did also say that groups of men seemed best suited to brainstorming although “mixed groups work well”.

Yet many have studied brainstorming scientifically and discovering that it is not as effective as some other methods. One of the first studies, Does Group Participation When Brainstorming Facilitate or Inhibit Creative Thinking, from 1958 examined a number of different scenarios and found that individual brainstorming tended to work better than the group brainstorming promoted by Osborn.

In 1991, a scientific paper called Productivity Loss in Brainstorming Groups by Brian Mullen and Craig Johnson of Syracuse University and Eduardo Salas of America’s Naval Training Systems Center found that brainstorming was less effective than a creative technique called nominal groups, where a small number of participants think of their own ideas which are presented to the group and voted on anonymously.

American business executive and business writer A. Harvey Block is another who believes that brainstorming is not as useful as it seems. He said: “The ideas that come out of most brainstorming sessions are usually superficial, trivial, and not very original. They are rarely useful. The process, however, seems to make uncreative people feel that they are making innovative contributions.”

It is perhaps this, and its ability to engender a team spirit, that has made brainstorming such a popular business tool and why so many companies use it today.  This popularity has also lead to the creation of a number of tools – both physical and virtual – to help businesses and others use the technique to the best advantage. Some schools are using Lego’s Mindstorms robotics kit as a tool to encourage brainstorming among pupils. The hotel chain Crowne Plaza recently introduced Think Boxes, a kit of tools designed by inventor Roger von Oech to inspire brainstorming and other creative techniques, into its meeting rooms. Many companies offer electronic brainstorming tools while the web 2.0 concept of crowdsourcing to attack tough questions has its roots in brainstorming.

One company that certainly does is the multi-award-winning Silicon Valley-based design consultancy IDEO, which has come up with products for hundreds of companies, including Apple, Hoover and Microsoft.

The firm’s general manager and business author Tom Kelley shows in his book The Art of Innovation just how central brainstorming is to the company. In it he says: “Brainstorming is not just a valuable creative tool at the fuzzy front end of projects. It’s also a pervasive cultural influence for making sure that individuals don’t waste too much energy spinning their wheels on a tough problem when the collective wisdom of the team can get them ‘unstuck’ in less than an hour.”

In the book, Kelley takes Osborn’s original ideas and gives several tips to create the perfect brainstorm.

• Sharpen the focus. The session should start with a well-defined statement of the problem. However, well-defined should not mean too specific. So ‘Helping cyclists drink coffee without spilling it’ would be better than ‘Spill-proof coffee cup lids’. You should also focus outward on some customer need rather than inward on some company goal.

• Don’t debate the ideas that arise as it can sap the energy of a brainstorming session.

• Number your ideas. This way makes it easy to say ‘Let’s get a 100 ideas before we leave the room.’,

• Build and jump. When ideas are flowing, a facilitator should apply a light touch to keep them coming. When participants are slowing down, a good facilitator will make a statement that helps transition to a new line of thought.

• The space remembers. Have plenty of markers along with Post-its, rolls of paper and white space to write ideas around the room. The facilitator should be able to write quickly too.

• Stretch your mental muscles. If the participants haven’t brainstormed before or not with the current group or if they seem distracted by unrelated issues, get them to warm up first, perhaps with a word game or a visit to a shop selling rival products.

• Get physical. “Leave your performance anxieties at the door an jump in with whatever visual tools you have available.

On the flipside, Kelley says there are many ways to kill off a brainstorming session:, not least allowing the boss to speak first. “If the boss gets first crack, then he’s going to set the agenda and the boundaries, and your brainstormer is immediately limited...Try sending the boss out for coffee.”

Brainstorming should be an office not an off-site activity, he recommends. “Do you want your team members to think that creativity and inspiration only happen at high altitude or within walking distance of an ocean?” he asks.

 
 

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