How to Brainstorm

Part 1: Planning

The facilitator needs to plan in advance. Things you need to think about are:

Why brainstorm? Brainstorms are useful for gathering together ideas from lots of people, for initial planning (i.e. what needs to be done) and for exploring and understanding a complex issue.

What is the overall aim? Brainstorms have the potential to achieve nothing unless they plan to achieve something. The aim might be an Action Plan for organising your conference, a mission statement document for your project, or just the actual thought process might be the overall aim.

What will come out of it? It helps if the facilitator thinks beforehand what issues will arise and what the outcomes will (or should?!) be. This should help it run smoothly, keep to time, and result in a positive outcome.

Part 2: Rules of the Brainstorm

These make sure it doesn’t descend into chaos! The facilitator explains these clearly at the beginning:

  1. A time limit is set (e.g. 10 minutes)
  2. Someone keeps time (not the facilitator)
  3. Everything shouted out gets written up by the facilitator
  4. No discussion or criticism on what people shout out (except occasionally for clarification), until the end of the brainstorm
  5. Whatever goes up, the whole group ‘owns’ it at the end
  6. No one is allowed to break the rules, including the facilitator!

Once these are explained, proceed to Brainstorm, with the facilitator writing up the points and making sure the rules are adhered to.

Part 3: Organising

The most valuable part of the brainstorm is the organisation of the mess of information. This is the stage where discussion takes place, to clarify points and to define the groups which arise. Everyone should look at your ideas and suggests connections between them - the facilitator draws lines between ideas to indicate these. This should result in grouping all the ideas under a smaller group of general headings. This thought process is really why Brainstorms can be so valuable. Also, having those groups/headings/categories for the future will make everything easier.

Part 4: Prioritising

Especially useful in planning what needs to be done is to prioritise the tasks you’ve brainstormed. For example, ‘triage’: each task gets a 1, 2 or 3, with a corresponding timescale for each category;

1 = must be done today 2 = must be done this week 3 = must be done this term

Or, alternatively;

1 = must be sorted out at this meeting. 2 = a plan for tackling these should be agreed this session (e.g. assigning someone to be responsible for this task getting done). 3 = to go on a list of jobs for the future.

Another example: put tasks into a four-box grid - 'Urgent and important', 'Urgent but less important', 'Non-urgent but important', 'Non-urgent and non-important'

Any method of prioritising helps direct the next bit...

Part 5: Action Plan / Summary

All Brainstorms must end with this! The aims are:

  • Bring together everything you’ve discussed

  • Come away with a definite outcome or plan

  • Ensure everyone is clear and agreed

It depends on the situation what exactly this will involve, but the facilitator needs to ensure that the session results in something positive. Tasks can be delegated, positions assigned, and specific objectives set.

At the end it’s always useful if the facilitator summarises the whole session: how it was run, what arose, and what the outcomes were.

Last updated on Thursday 22 May 2008 at 17:14.