ideasThe default approach in most organizations and on most teams for idea generation is to conduct a brainstorming meeting.

You know the drill.  A meeting notice is sent out, and everyone assembles at the appointed time, prepared to “ideate.”  The moderator reminds everyone of the rules…no criticism, build on ideas of others, wild ideas are encouraged and so forth.  The issue is framed, a scribe, timekeeper and possibly a rules enforcer are identified and away you go.  Somewhere.

While there are some obvious potential social benefits from this type of team gathering and work, there’s no formal evidence that traditional group brainstorming is any more effective than other group or individual techniques for generating either more ideas and/or higher quality ideas.  In fact, there’s a hefty body of evidence that the dynamics in the live group setting may well contribute to stifling creativity or directing conversations down paths that are less than ideal for the issue at hand.

Researchers have long observed social issues, including distraction, social loafing (the tendency of some members of a group to work less due to the group), production blocking and evaluation apprehension as factors that impact both the quantity and quality of idea generation in brainstorming sessions. If you’ve participated in more than a few of these meetings, you’ve definitely observed all of these in action at some point.

An interesting and potentially beneficial approach is to add a step into the process that encourages individual brainstorming and that offers a degree of anonymity.

Add a Step or Two to Improve Idea Generation:

As the facilitator, you frame out the brainstorming question/issue and allow people working on their own to generate and then return to you a list of ideas.  You roll-up the ideas (without attribution) and return the compiled list to the individuals with instructions to clarify (add more detail), build-on and even potentially to sort the ideas into different buckets.

At some point, the group assembles face-to-face, with the ideas and content generated thus far visible to all.  The facilitator helps the group work through additional discussions and add-ons, as well as evaluation and prioritization.

The delayed face-to-face work doesn’t completely eliminate the opportunity for the social problems identified above, but it does potentially allow everyone to move further through the process before these biases or opportunities for derailment enter the picture.  The hoped-for outcome is that people focus more on generating, clarifying and extending ideas without concern for source or agenda, versus the purely live format.

There are of course a variety of additional approaches and techniques ranging from the structured and anonymity focused Delphi technique to brain writing and others that can help mix things up as you search for a better flow of quality ideas.  The suggestion above is one simple, easy to implement twist to your current brainstorming approach.

The Bottom-Line for Now:

In a world where gaining an edge is increasingly a function of responding to or anticipating customers needs in unique ways, creativity is priceless.  The topic is also nearly endless, involving issues of culture, leadership, input sources and group-make up, voice of customer, lateral or divergent and convergent thinking, and of course, human psychology.

Regardless of the complexity or the nearly infinite opportunities for inspiration and idea generation, try breaking away from the formulaic approach to brainstorming that is so widely and frequently used.  The results might surprise you.