Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Better Brainstorming: Charge Admission

Pulling together some brilliant minds to generate some brilliant ideas?

Make the most of your time together by charging admission to the meeting.

Before holding the group brainstorming session, send a preliminary invitation to your targeted participants. Clearly define the challenge and why it's important, provide as much background information as you think they'll need, and describe what you'd like the brainstorming to produce.

Ask them to independently generate and post several initial ideas. Provide a posting venue they can easily access, such as a
  • physical venue: using a centrally located whiteboard or flipcharts,
  • public virtual venue: using a site like evernote or ning,
  • private virtual venue: like your company intranet or a private LinkedIn group.

Review basic brainstorming etiquette and ask for their ideas by a specific date.

Those that post several ideas, review and build on the ideas already posted, and demonstrate good brainstorming etiquette by the date requested are admitted to the group brainstorming meeting.

The group's time is then used by invested, engaged thinkers to augment and improve their initial ideas.

This approach accommodates different thinking styles, builds in an incubation period, and optimizes the time spent thinking together.