Wanting to carry out effective brainstorming, that is one that generates as many valuable ideas as possible, we need to make proper preparations. It will save you a lot of time and the meeting will not have to drag for the whole day.
Below, you shall find six steps that are worth completing in order to maximise the brainstorming effectiveness.
1. Participant recruitment
- How many participants should be invited? If personas have been created as part of the project, then a group of 2-5 people should work on each of the personas. With four personas, we will need 12-20 people.
- Who does each group consist of? In the case of a large project, when we have an appropriate budget, it is good when each group consists of the customer’s employee (due to their knowledge about the company), an external guest (due to their fresh perspective) and the agency employee. When it comes to smaller projects, we can ask colleagues from another department or persons who are not directly engaged in the project for help.
- Who should we invite? If possible, the invited persons should not be distinguished by too dominating or analytical characters, as it might disturb the process. The group should be diverse in terms of age, seniority, or experience.
2. Sending a brief
- What materials should be sent to the participants? These can include: the persona’s profile, the empathy map and business assumptions. The materials should be concise and clear, e.g. in the form of a presentation.
- When should the materials be sent? The participants should have enough time for their own research and incubation, that is one day before the session at the latest.
3. Preparation of space and tools
- What room should we choose? Light, with lots of natural light, well ventilated before the session.
- What should be available in the room? Flipcharts, marker pens, sticky notes, and a place to stick them to, timer, snacks, and drinks for the participants.
- What else should we consider? It is worth taking care of creative aids. They will come in handy when the team is in a creative slump. Choose the tools you will be using. Remember that there should be enough of them for all the session participants.
4. Method selection and meeting plan preparation
- How to choose a method? The most suitable will be classic brainstorming in accordance with the principles established by its creator – Alex Osborn. However, we must consider the personalities of the participants. If we know that we are dealing with a very shy group, we can conduct written brainstorming, while in the case of participants who tend to criticise, probably the most suitable will be the Six Thinking Hats method.
- What should the meeting plan contain? In order for the meeting to be effective and not too long at the same time, the plan should take into account the time for: establishing the session rules, discussing the brief, the idea generation session, the idea grouping, and voting for the best ideas.
5. Warm-up preparation
- When should a warm-up be done?
It is good to carry out a creative warm-up before we begin the brainstorming session proper, especially when the participants’ everyday work does not require creativity very often. A warm-up will also come in handy when:
- the energy level among the participants drop
- the ideas refuse to appear
- it is a Monday morning
If you want to explore the subject, read our article about warm-ups. Our favourite warm-up tools can be downloaded at the end of this article.
6. Familiarising the participants with the rules
Before we begin to generate the first ideas, the participants should learn the rules of this creative method.
What rules should be remembered?
- focus on the quantity, not the quality
- do not criticise any ideas
- write down one idea on one piece of paper, try to write legibly (it will be easier later to join and group the ideas together).
Brainstorming is an effective and simple method. However, its success largely depends on proper preparations, both by the moderator and all the project participants.
