š We're live on the iOS app store
.svg){kind=small}
Brainstorming is one of the best ways to get new ideas and solutions to the forefront. Brainstorming is not a structure-less exercise where people spitball ideas to see what might stick.
When structured, brainstorming exercises can be super potent and excellent at identifying synergies. A lot of times, they are not given the attention they need due to this assumption and are not optimized for the best output.
Hence, in this blog post, we will look at how you can structure brainstorming sessions and look at some best practices to get the most out of them.
Let's jump in.
To have a successful brainstorming session, you need to maintain a checklist of steps. You should also assign roles to people attending the session.
Some of the common roles for brainstorming sessions are time-keepers, facilitators, note-takers, etc.
Prepare a list of participants for the event and get feedback on this list from past attendees to ensure a high quality session.
Also, pay attention to the diversity of the group to ensure diverse lines of thoughts are put forward since this also makes your team more creative.
List few open-ended questions for the beginning of the session to encourage participation.
Also, remember to share the meeting agenda & goals to ensure that participants come prepared. This will also help keep them on track during the session.
Ensure that logistics are ready so that there are no last-minute rushes. These checks include checking and confirming the rooms booked, stationary, sending reminder emails to participants, etc.
Start by validating the session by addressing its importance to the participants so that they know what's at stake and define the agenda and expectations from the session to ensure that the discussions stay on track.
Inform the participants that the minutes of the session will be shared with them after the session so that they don't spend their time taking notes during the session and also, discuss the next steps for the ideas generated during the session to increase accountability in execution. People like to see value in things they contribute to.
Dedicate the first few minutes to setting the agenda and defining the problem statement. You also need to have a breathing period between sessions for participants to recollect their thoughts and move around a little bit. At the end of each session, summarize what was accomplished and the plan for the next section.
Break the session into three parts: Open discussion where minimal boundaries are set to encourage new ideas, qualified ideas session where the best ideas from the first session are discussed, and finally, the conclusion and future steps session. Map the ideas that qualified for the second session on the board/screen to ensure that participants understand the context of the discussion.
Ask the participants to introduce themselves to the group along with their connection to the problem the session is trying to solve and assert that the session's facilitator will decide when and how to move on from a discussion.
It is important that you share the minutes of the meeting or meeting notes with each participant and ask for their feedback on the session. On the other hand, you should also prepare a list of top performers from the session and make it a priority to ensure their participation in future sessions.
It would also help to share the progress made on the ideas discussed and reasons for success and failure, this will help motivate the participants understand the realities of the solutions better.
Finally, after 3-6 months pass, it would be of good value to do a post-mortem of the session and the ideas discussed therein, so that participants can have their perspectives improved to better contribute in the next session.
Time and again, we learn that adding a little bit of structure to discussions can make the outcomes so much more potent and valuable, and brainstorming is no different.
So take the steps shared in this post and use them when you want to conduct your next brainstorming session, and let us know how it worked out. We would love to hear from you on our Twitter page.
We recently created a post on how to stay on top of meeting tasks and action items, so do read that post.
Consider checking out Routine's own productivity podcast called "The Productive Minute" on iTunes, Google Podcasts, and Spotify if you enjoy content like this. Thanks for reading.
Shiva is a subject matter expert in communication, marketing, productivity, and learning systems. He has previously contributed to many blogs and newsletters, including Validated, Mental Models, HackerNoon, and several brands. You can find Shiva onĀ LinkedInĀ or email him at shiva(at)routine.co.
