6 Easy Techniques for Effective Brainstorming

6 Easy Techniques for Effective Brainstorming

“Suppose I showed you two rooms where in one a group of programmers was developing a program to monitor a heart patient and keep him alive until the doctors arrive if something goes wrong and in the other a group of street people was using Microsoft Word to write letters to their parole officers. You would not be able to tell the rooms apart.”

– Richard P. Gabriel

We all want to thrive and be at our utmost creativity, but doing so we need to push ourselves, we need to push our limits further. How can we achieve this though? Well, we can’t really meditate our creativity – some can to be honest, but those human beings are incredibly rare; we should use meditation as a different tool, we should use it to power our brainstorming sessions.

Brainstorming isn’t that easy – it’s not like you sit at your desk and just try to think stuff, you need to create the perfect state for you to think stuff. You don’t know how to achieve that perfect brainstorming state? Don’t worry, we are here to teach you some easy techniques for effective brainstorming sessions. What are you waiting for? Scroll down and enlarge your knowledge!

1. Get your timing straight!

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You could be a morning person, or you could be more like me, a mid day person – to speak the truth, a night owl, I am a night owl! If you don’t feel like tackling ideas in the morning, and if you’re feeling more comfortable in the evening, you should heed your gut!

“Brainstorming is a group or individual creativity technique by which efforts are made to find a conclusion for a specific problem by gathering a list of ideas spontaneously contributed by its member(s). The term was popularized by Alex Faickney Osborn in the 1953 book Applied Imagination. Osborn claimed that brainstorming was more effective than individuals working alone in generating ideas, although more recent research has questioned this conclusion. Today, the term is used as a catch all for all group ideation sessions.”

2. Look outside the box for inspiration!

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Are you tired of the same old design that appears on billboards, websites, magazines? I for one can say that I’m gruesomely tired of what I see in todays advertising. We need bright minds that think outside the box and don’t conform to traditional ideas. You should always try to challenge yourself in brainstorming sessions.

“Advertising executive Alex F. Osborn began developing methods for creative problem solving in 1939. He was frustrated by employees’ inability to develop creative ideas individually for ad campaigns. In response, he began hosting group-thinking sessions and discovered a significant improvement in the quality and quantity of ideas produced by employees. Osborn outlined the method in his 1948 book ‘Your Creative Power’ on chapter 33, “How to Organize a Squad to Create Ideas.”

3. Be at the utmost comfortable!

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Comfortable means different things for different persons. For me comfortable means me being in my jamies with a hot cup of cocoa in my hand watching a TV show – lately I’ve been binge watching “ Orange is the New Black” and I highly recommend it, but let’s not get sidetracked here. For others comfortable could mean being at a desk, in a tight suit, drinking black coffee and crunching numbers.

Either group can have an incredible brainstorming sessions where they could come up with great ideas. It really depends on how you’re feeling it – “ Nominal Group Technique – Participants are asked to write their ideas anonymously. Then the facilitator collects the ideas and the group votes on each idea. The vote can be as simple as a show of hands in favor of a given idea. This process is called distillation. After distillation, the top ranked ideas may be sent back to the group or to subgroups for further brainstorming.

For example, one group may work on the color required in a product. Another group may work on the size, and so forth. Each group will come back to the whole group for ranking the listed ideas. Sometimes ideas that were previously dropped may be brought forward again once the group has re-evaluated the ideas. It is important that the facilitator be trained in this process before attempting to facilitate this technique. The group should be primed and encouraged to embrace the process. Like all team efforts, it may take a few practice sessions to train the team in the method before tackling the important ideas.“

4. Take breaks!

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You’ve been working for hours, trying to tackle your latest project, trying to come up with that great pitch idea that you know your clients will adore, but it isn’t happening right now. Do you know what you need? Besides getting tea and cookies of course. You need a break, go do something that you enjoy, go relax playing a game, watching a cartoon, talking with a friend, surfing the internet. That’s how creativity slowly creeps into your life. “ Group Passing Technique – Each person in a circular group writes down one idea, and then passes the piece of paper to the next person, who adds some thoughts.

This continues until everybody gets his or her original piece of paper back. By this time, it is likely that the group will have extensively elaborated on each idea. The group may also create an “idea book” and post a distribution list or routing slip to the front of the book. On the first page is a description of the problem. The first person to receive the book lists his or her ideas and then routes the book to the next person on the distribution list.

The second person can log new ideas or add to the ideas of the previous person. This continues until the distribution list is exhausted. A follow-up “read out” meeting is then held to discuss the ideas logged in the book. This technique takes longer, but it allows individuals time to think deeply about the problem.”

5. Don’t Judge Ideas!

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It’s a brainstorming session. If you are quick to judge  new ideas and discard them completely you aren’t going to get anywhere. You have to profit out of great, mediocre, stupid ideas. You never know where they will lead. You could have the bases from a stupid idea, complement it with something from a mediocre idea, and top it with a great one. Alas, your journey has ended, and your pitch is going to be complete!

6. Embrace the Ridiculous!

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As I said at #5 – don’t judge ideas too quickly.Embrace the ridiculous, it may be your way out, it may be the solution you are searching for. I also like to call it the Eureka state – “The eureka effect, also known as the aha! moment, refers to the common human experience of suddenly understanding a previously incomprehensible problem or concept.”

This was our list of 6 easy techniques for effective brainstorming. Hoped you enjoyed it! If you have anything to add, please feel free to do so by posting in the comments section below! We would love to hear from you!

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