Brainstorming can be quite effective. When it’s done properly of course. Unfortunately, most people don’t understand how to brainstorm effectively. Especially when it happens inside a group. When you know how to do this, it can have a wonderful effect. Not only to help you land on the perfect idea, but also to bring the team closer together.
Brainstorming does seem quite easy. Sitting together, talking about issues and things that need solving in your company… how hard can it be? Well, not if you make one of the many mistakes there are to make while brainstorming. Brainstorming can be really hard, if you don’t know how to begin. Luckily, there are many things you can do to ensure an effective brainstorm session. Here are 3 techniques you can use.
Writing by hand
We live in a modern era. This unfortunately means that we use electronic devices for almost everything. Also, at brainstorm sessions. That’s a shame, because typing doesn’t push your brain to his absolute limits. You only use one side of your brain while typing. While you use both sides when writing by hand. Besides that, having your computer in the room with you, will distract you more then when you’ve only got pen and paper in the room.
Enjoy this advantage and make sure everyone in the room with you is companied by a high-quality Parker pen and a piece of paper. Laptops, smartphones and other electronic devices must be left outside the room.
Collect the right people
Brainstorm sessions are only successful when you collect the right people. Choose the people who are involved in the issues that you want to solve. Choose a whole range of different people. Everyone who has something to do with their issues. You can also use the wide range of different people to confront different situations. For example, by taking a person inside the room (or someone outside or fictional) and discuss how this person would handle a certain situation.
Let them all use their Cross pens and write down how they would handle this situation and let them all discuss about the thing they’ve written down. By putting yourself in someone else’s shoes it sometimes gets easier to solve problems.
Online brainstorming
Due to the current situation with corona, we’ve all experienced work from home, home-schooling, social distancing and lockdowns. This also means that we’ve worked more from home and also that brainstorm sessions were held from home. Luckily, online brainstorming sessions can be quite successful. Just let everyone know on time. Give them the opportunity to write down techniques, ideas and questions, so they’re well prepared for the actual brainstorm session.
Just make sure everyone is involved during the online brainstorming session. During an online session it can be quite easy to just stay low and don’t say anything. But you want involvement from everyone inside the company. That’s why you need to make sure that everyone gets their own time to talk. Success guaranteed!