7 Ways to Run an Effective Brainstorming Session
Aniisu K Verghese Ph.D.
Elevating Internal Communications. Amplifying Personal Brands | IC & Change Leader, Author & Speaker | Linkedin's Top Voice for IC and Personal Branding | Australian Distinguished Talent PR Visa Awardee
Have an idea and want to make it work? Try getting a diverse set of views in a brainstorming session.
Conducting a brainstorming session is helpful but can also be tricky if you aren’t prepared for the interaction or unsure of how to channelize suggestions that emerge from the discussions.
Consider your goals: Think of what you want out of the session. For example, it is an opportunity to get to know people, understand their point of views, learn more about challenges your idea can run into crowdsource suggestions to make your idea take-off.
Do your homework: Before you get people together it will help to do a pulse check of the key benefits and challenges that they see from the idea. That can form the basis of your discussion rather than start with a clean slate. Starting with a clean slate also helps – just that it takes a lot longer to steer the conversation.
Embrace diversity: Invite people from different teams who have a connection to your topic so as to get the most of the conversations. It is good to have a healthy debate on the pros and cons of the topic. In one such interaction I ensure that teams who had conflicting approaches sent their resources and it helped for both to realize they needed to converge their thinking.
Prepare a briefing note: The note must spell out the objectives, what people will be expected to contribute to and how it will fuel the next round of interactions or take the idea forward. Be prepared for a mix of people with varied experiences and personalities. To ensure that introverts, for example, contribute share a printout of this note and give everyone time to reflect on their thoughts before you begin.
All views on board: While staying laser focused on the topic ensure that everyone gets a chance to voice their views and clearly indicate that there are no ‘bad’ or ‘stupid’ ideas. Avoid interrupting during the exchanges. Only intervene if the decorum of the meeting is at stake.
Summarize and follow-up: Ensure you get the key points shared quickly and assign ownership for next steps so that the conversation moves forward. In essence, people need to see that their ideas and suggestions are taken on board. If you can’t proceed with a suggestion it is important to call that out early.
Recognize their support: It will do wonders if you can drop a note to their managers that their team members contributed over and above with suggestions. If you can create a social media page or group for the conversation to be available online that will help immensely.
Lastly, continue the engagement and keep the group posted on the progress you are making.
Try these and let me know how it goes!
Head of Membership at ICA
7ySimple and easy to follow for effective sessions with tangible and actionable outcomes
Program Director at Happiest Minds Technologies
7yPrecise and to the point.. combine these suggestions with the Agile Brainstorming Techniques and you have perfect recipe for Brain Storming Session,
Because People Matter - caring for customers, associates, managers, and everyone in between
7yDiverse minds can often reach the best solutions if they are heard. Just learned this in my Organizational Behavior class.
Director of Creative Rule Breaking (Live Events)
7yThis is good, foundational stuff and it makes a lot of sense IF you believe that you can institutionalize ‘new ideas’ … but I’m not sure that the brain can make optimal connections in a rigid atmosphere (where there is pressure from the group and its leader, to come up with ‘the right answers’.) I’m not a fan of the terms ‘Brainstorming’ or even ‘Agile thinking’ … as a description of HOW to connect and offer fresh insights, but it’s definitely a worthy aim (and one I’m very familiar with) So … instead of just running a conventional, group ‘Brainstorming Session’ … perhaps we should consider introducing techniques such as the use of moderate background noise to a session (which is proven to induce distraction and encourages people to think at a higher, abstract level, and consequently acts as a catalyst for higher creativity.) OR, if you want to be bolder, perhaps we should first encourage the people to experience a difficult, ‘out of their comfort zone’ activity (which has been shown to impact on ‘the gray matter’ ... the part of the brain that processes complex ideas) Don’t laugh … but if you believe that innovation and new ideas are deep inside your chosen ‘team’ … then meditation is one way to allow them to become more apparent and more connected. (This is hardly rocket-science, but it has been proven that meditation increases your power of concentration and allows the mind to let ideas flow freely.) And finally ... one of the key obstacles people face, in this area, (I perceive) … is the lack of ‘Belief’ that they can tap into the answers that are hidden inside them. So, helping them to believe they can improve their cognitive abilities, become more curious / be more open-minded / more successful through taking measured risks and making mistakes, is a no-brainer! You know, if it was good enough for Soichiro Honda, then it’s good enough for me!