Tool Type

Creativity; Ideation; Exploration

Purpose

The purpose of a brainstorming session is to bring together a group of people to generate, test and select ideas in order to generate a new outcome or resolve an existing goal. Brainstorming is all about drawing on the knowledge, skills and creativity of the people involved.

Download the Word file here

Time

Two Hours

Materials

Note paper & Pens; Whiteboard / Flipchart / Flipchart paper; Enough markers (different colors) for all participants; Post-It notes.

Method

  1. Define the issue / objective:
    Before beginning brainstorming, it is essential that all participants understand the issue / objective of the session. Explain what it is and why it’s important. Allow the participants to seek clarification. This is important to help you keep the session on track and to ensure that objectives are met.
  2. Explain the Rules of Brainstorming:
    It is essential that everyone understand how brainstorming works. Here are the rules to successful brainstorming –

    1. All ideas are valid until tested!
    2. Suspend judgment of ideas until the evaluation phase of the process.
    3. Do not limit your thinking to what you ‘think’ is possible. Assume all barriers (financial, organizational, etc) have been removed.
    4. Feel free to combine and build on other people’s ideas.
  3. The Ideation Process
    The key here is to generate as many ideas as possible. At this stage the purpose is to engage the participants’ creativity and identify new ideas.

    1. Give participants 5-10 minutes to contemplate the issue / objective independently.
    2. Get people on their feet and open up to the floor for 15-20 minutes to explain their ideas.
    3. Start to record ideas on the flipchart.
    4. Pin each flipchart sheet of ideas to the wall when full.
    5. The moderator should encourage out of the box thinking while making sure that no one is making any judgments about the validity or otherwise of the idea.
    6. Encourage people to review ideas with a view to combining them or building on them.
  4. The Evaluation Process
    The purpose here is to establish how ideas will be evaluated and to apply those criteria to the ideas generated in the ideation phase.

    1. Get the participants to independently review the ideas generated and select those which they feel have the most potential. This will allow the participants to eliminate ideas that are clearly unworkable.
    2. Collate the participants’ choices on the flipchart.
    3. Ideally you are looking for between 5 and 8 strong ideas.
    4. If there are more than this get the participants to rank their top 8 ideas from the list. Collate the scores and note the 8 strongest on a separate flipchart page.
    5. Get the group to define 5-6 evaluation criteria. Refer back to the definition of the issue / objective to do this.
    6. Note the results on the flipchart.
    7. Allow participants to select and rank the 5 most important evaluation criteria.
    8. Now begin to evaluate each idea in term of the criteria. For this you can use one of two approaches
      1. Allow each participant to independently evaluate each idea. Then the moderator can collate and average the scores.
      2. Evaluate the ideas as a group and then reach a consensus on the score.
    9. Continue process until each idea has been evaluated.
    10. Eliminate the weakest ideas.
    11. Re-evaluate the remaining ideas
    12. Continue until consensus has been reach on the best idea / option.
  5. The Follow Through Process
    The purpose of the Follow Through process is to ensure that any actions that need to be taken to implement the idea are identified and assigned accordingly. This can form the basis for a more detailed project implementation plan should one be required.

    1. Get the participants to work together to determine what steps need to be taken to implement the idea.
    2. Write down the steps on the flipchart.
    3. Next get the participants to consider the sequence and timing of each step.
    4. Apply deadlines for each step and set milestones as required.
    5. Now get the participants to identify roles and responsibilities for the implementation of the idea.
    6. Get participants to assign responsibilities to the appropriate people.

Collate this information and email to all participants to ensure everyone is aware the next steps and their responsibilities.