The Secret to Brainstorm Success
by Gijs van Wulfen 

The effectiveness of brainstorms is challenged. A lot of them are done in the wrong way. I suggest you should shut up in a brainstorm and mind the details to get great results.

The spiritual father of the brainstorming technique is the American Alex Osborn. He is also one of the founders (and the ‘O’) of advertising agency BBDO, still renowned worldwide. In 1948 he published a book called Your Creative Power. In the chapter “How to Organize a Squad to Create Ideas” he describes when a group works together, the members should engage in a “brainstorm,” that is; “using the brain to storm a creative problem—and doing so in commando fashion, with each stormer attacking the same objective.” Two essential rules are:

1. Defer your judgment
2. Go for quantity

The underlying assumption of brainstorming is that people are scared of saying something wrong. In a period where employees still were scared to speak up, brainstorming was experienced as revolutionary.

Since the fifties a lot of people have challenged the effectiveness of brainstorms. Keith Sawyer, a psychologist at Washington University, once summed up the science to conclude: “Decades of research have consistently shown that brainstorming groups think of far fewer ideas than the same number of people who work alone and later pool their ideas”. Recent research of Bernard Nijstad and Wolfgang Stroebe confirmed that brainstorming in a group has two major shortcomings.

1. Individuals often produce fewer ideas and ideas of lower quality in group settings as compared when they work alone.
2. When people have to wait for others to complete their turn before presenting their idea, ideas are often lost.

Nijstad elaborated to say that being part of a group only gives you the illusion of group productivity. His findings show that group members are more satisfied with their performance than individuals, despite having generated fewer ideas. The group setting makes you feel more productive. This feeling is attributed to the group experiencing fewer instances in which someone is unable to generate ideas.

Why then do I recommend new product brainstorming with 10 -16 participants? Luckily, brainstorming has evolved since the fifties. Back then, it was common practice that all participants could spontaneously shout out their ideas. This led to chaotic situations whereby the individual thought process was constantly interrupted. Furthermore, in large brainstorming groups most participants had to wait too long before they could unleash their ideas, which caused some ideas to vanish before anyone even had a chance to hear them.

Being aware of the pitfalls of a brainstorm with a group, I fine-tuned the way of brainstorming. Team members first get the opportunity to start generating new ideas in complete silence. They each write their ideas on separate post-it notes: brainwriting. Afterwards, everybody quickly reads their ideas out loud to the group. This has a very stimulating effect on the participants as they are encouraged to continue listening and to elaborate on their own ideas. How the participants are positioned in the room also has a stimulating effect as they are seated in a horseshoe formation (without tables) and can see each other clearly. This way, the idea of one participant is a source of inspiration for the other. Brainstorming this way for a couple of rounds using different techniques usually leads to 750+ ideas on the idea wall, as you can see on the picture.

Of course a lot of other factors matter too. In my practice, I have found 25 pieces needed to create perfect brainstorming:

Highly relevant

1. Define a relevant subject, which is a challenge for the organization and the people you invite.
2. Create with the sponsor a concrete and s.m.a.r.t. brainstorming or innovation assignment.
3. Create momentum for brainstorming. Something important must happen now!

Diverse group of participants

1. Invite people for whom the assignment is personally relevant.
2. Invite people for both content as well as decision-making capabilities.
3. Include outsiders and outside-the-box thinkers.
4. Include an even mix of men and women, young & old, et cetera.
5. Invite the internal senior problem-owner (CEO or vice president) to participate.

Special setting

1. Look for a special and harmonious venue.
2. Create an (emotionally) safe environment where you can be yourself.
3. Don’t allow iPhones and iPads to ring or flash.
4. Never- and I really mean never do any brainstorming at the office.

Effectively structured process

1. Allow at least two days for effective brainstorming to reach concrete new concepts.
2. Spend twice as much time on the convergence process as on the divergence process.
3. Plan and prepare an effective combination of idea-generating techniques.
4. Be open to suggestions from the group to adapt the process.
5. Make sure it is enjoyable. Fun promotes good results.
6. Time box. Make sure everybody is aware of the time limits- and sticks to them.
7. Hire a storyboard artist or cartoonist to visualize the results
8. Keep up the pace; otherwise it becomes long-winded and boring.

Facilitated by a professional

1. Appoint an (internal) expert facilitator, who stays in the background and exercises light control.
2. The facilitator should reflect the opposite energy of the group. If the group is too active: exert calmness.
3. The facilitator mustn’t lose sight of sub groups; constantly monitoring their progress.

Concrete output

1. Make the output very concrete and clear to anybody.
2. Creating concepts together with your colleagues generates maximum internal support.

The experience of sharing ideas in a structured process and drafting concrete concepts from the best ideas has a great impact on group dynamics. At the end the whole group feels ownership of all the concepts. That is essential. New ideas need a lot of ‘parents’ to survive the product development process in a corporate culture.

ps. For some practical tips ‘How to pick the right idea out of 752 post-its’ read thisLinkedIn article.