Why brainstorming is good

Essentially, it is a highly collaborative experience intended to bring a wide range of ideas to the table, some of which will fall to the wayside, while others will get pulled and shaped into something concrete, but what I find most exciting is when a new idea emerges, something no one entered the room with, and through the meeting it grows and develops.

Following that meeting, I asked Master about brainstorming. In our case, the brainstorming session helped us identify specific messaging ideas to better communicate the goals and benefits of our programs. We each walked into the meeting with certain ideas and expectations. Many dominant personalities actually mean well and often contribute constructive ideas. By politely but firmly countering their dominance, you ensure better brainstorm productivity from the group as a whole.

Many prefer hiding in the background and relying on others to come up with the bulk of the ideas. This is called social loafing or free riding.

Not unlike the bystander effect, people feel less compelled to act if someone else steps up. Similar to the strategy used with dominating personalities, make a point of calling on those who are not actively participating in the group brainstorming.

Offer positive reinforcement to team members who seem apprehensive or intimidated to share ideas within the group. Getting comfortable with brainstorming ideas as a group can be difficult, at least at first. Keep in mind, every team member can make a valuable contribution to the team. Every idea is worth exploring further. Group brainstorming can bring many benefits to your team—when you do it right.

See our tips for improving your brainstorming sessions. Lucidspark is a virtual whiteboard that helps you and your team collaborate to bring the best ideas to light. It comes packed with all of the sticky notes, freehand drawing tools, and infinite canvas space you need to capture that next big idea. Think of it like a sandbox where your team can bounce ideas around and innovate together in real time.

The pros and cons of group brainstorming Reading time: about 7 min When you think about it, most businesses could benefit from having a few more creative ideas at their disposal. Benefits of group brainstorming Sure, working on your own might seem easier. It helps avoid biases toward any particular viewpoint Solitary problem solving is arguably more efficient. If anything, the presence of differing viewpoints leaves everyone open to new possibilities.

Brainstorming originated from an advertising executive named Alex F. Osborne, and dates back to around He began hosting group-thinking sessions, and discovered that this approach led to a significant boost in the quality and quantity of new ideas.

During these brainstorming sessions, ideas are collected and recorded using whatever tool is available to the team. Modern businesses have begun to adopt digital brainstorming tools to speed up the process and make the review phases faster and more productive. Quantity of ideas is usually emphasized over quality, with the goal of generating as many new suggestions as possible. Once all ideas have been collected, the team then evaluates each of them and focuses on the ones that are most likely to solve the problem.

These principles include:. Brainstorming techniques and processes helps your team innovate and work collaboratively. In fact, holding individual or reverse brainstorming sessions can both be helpful activities for generating new ideas. Your goal should always be to use the process that works best for you and your team. This is largely due to the many advantages of brainstorming that help teams work more collaboratively towards a common goal.

In summary, the core advantages of brainstorming are its ability to unlock creativity by collaboration. As you can probably guess, brainstorming is a technique that can be used in a wide variety of different situations.

Because of this versatility, brainstorming is a widely used technique among companies and teams of all sizes. To get you thinking about where you can use brainstorming, here are some examples of scenarios when this technique might be useful. Are you trying to figure out how to improve a system or aspect of your association? Brainstorming could be your answer. A brainstorming session is a meeting where leadership can get together and come up with ideas on a certain topic or issue.

Here are 5 benefits to holding a brainstorming session with your team:. If you are stuck on an idea or just need fresh ideas, give a brainstorming session a try.