Brainstorming Basics

An article in the Wall Street Journal caught my eye. In Productive Brainstorms Take the Right Mix of Elements, Kelly K. Spors interviewed Matt Bowen, president and CEO of Aloft Group, Inc. about brainstorming basics.

The key to effective brainstorming: Not squelching other people's ideas.

"There's a whole procedure involved," says Bowen. "Step One is to identify, very clearly in one sentence only, what the [specific goal] is going to be. Send it out a day or two in advance so employees start subconsciously thinking about it.

"The second stage is gather people together. Brainstorming sessions should never last more than an hour. They shouldn't be too large, usually no more than five or seven people, especially when you're first learning how to do it."

Bowen's House Rules include: Saying "Our goal is to produce X number of ideas"; no critiquing; no editing; and, most importantly, building on other people's ideas.

Diversity helps, so bringing in people from other departments is encouraged. Bowen calls them "agitators - somebody you know who is going to come in with a different [spin on things]."

Before you start, though, it's important to establish criteria to subsequently rate and the ideas that are generated. Examples of such litmuses:

• Our ultimate solution has to be complete-able within three weeks
• Our ultimate solution has to cost no more than the budget allocated for it
• Our ultimate solution has to also address these tangential issues
• Our ultimate solution has to involve the following stakeholders

While brainstorming can be a creative and fun process, don't take it too casually. Per Bowan, "A surefire way to kill an innovative process is to go through the processes and then never implement one of the ideas. You need to show that you're trying to implement something."

Agreed.