Creative Brainstorming Techniques For Your TeamConducting a brainstorming workshop can help you find highly creative answers and solutions to a problem you may be facing. Brainstorming is a particularly useful strategy to help you break free from out of date, patterned thinking, and help you create a new and fresh way to look at things. There are many creative brainstorming techniques that you may use in managing your brainstorming meetings. First, have a warm up session. This will help get your team warmed up to each other, and also demonstrate a criticism free atmosphere for your group. Pose a simple, and non related problem for this first warm up. They can be fun, putting your group at ease with each other, or they can relaxation exercises that help the mind to open up to new ideas. These warm ups will help your group be more creative while trying to tackle the real problem.
Make sure that your group is varied in the experience and expertise of the participants. The more diverse your group is, the better the assortment of ideas that you will generate will be. Your group should be made up of about 10 to 12 people from varied backgrounds or expertise. Encourage a no criticism environment. Everyone should have an opportunity to voice their ideas and opinions, whether you go around the table one by one, or you encourage free flow ideas and team members throw ideas out randomly.
When you are ready to tackle the real problem, clearly identify and define the issue for your group. Explain and identify what the end goals of the brainstorming session are. Appoint one team member as the idea recorder, and have the group start presenting ideas. You want to get as much information written down as quickly as possible, so you can expand on the individual ideas later in the session.
If your group is having a hard time getting started, grab a dictionary and throw out a random word. Create ideas using that word. A change in atmosphere or location could also help your group get their creative juices flowing again. Go for a walk, a cup of coffee, or change location to a different type of room. Go from the boring boardroom to a library, or hotel lobby. |