- Today, the purpose of brainstorming
remains the same as it did when Alex Osborn penned it.
bring a group of people together to generate ideas
around a particular problem.
On the surface, the concept certainly passes the logic test.
If one person can generate five ideas,
then two should generate 10,
but it never seems to work that way, does it?
There are a number of factors that contribute
to an effective brainstorming process.
The least of which is remembering that it is a process.
One that we can manually shorten and cheapen
as time or circumstances lead us
to combine parts of the process or worse,
throw them out altogether.
But know this, if you'll commit to the process,
it will yield more and better ideas
than you could have generated alone.
We have all experienced times
when we feel that the ideas we generate on our own
are better than the ones generated in a group setting.
Both methods have their merits for sure.
When we ideate individually,
we're in control of the entire process.
So the quality of that session is never in question,
but in a group setting,
the structure of the process becomes vital.
That's why it's so important to have a plan
for your brainstorm and be able to truly facilitate,
rather than just putting people in a room
and hoping for the magic to happen.
If you know the goal of the brainstorm and plan for it,
group ideation is extremely effective.
The goal of a brainstorm is not to solve a problem,
it's to provide possibilities.
Solving the problem will come after you move
from the divergent exercise of ideation
to the convergent exercise of idea selection.
Divergent thinking is the act
of generating multiple options and ideas.
Convergent thinking is generating
or filtering to a single solution.
Your sole purpose of a brainstorm
should be to generate options,
even ones that aren't fully formed.
If you first recognize that this is a process
with definable and necessary steps to be effective,
and that its purpose is to provide possibility
rather than solutions, you'll be well on your way
to more effective brainstorming sessions.