Brainstorming Rules
When you are starting a project, you can count on your team to help provide the answers.
They are going to answer things like the “what” and the “why” and the “how” questions. And the very best facilitator is brainstorming. But their needs to be a few rules in place to have an effective brainstorming session.
The Rules are simple, and need to apply to every session you have. Remember there’s not a leader or chairman, there is a group that all follow the same brainstorming rules. Ready?
Brainstorming Rules:
1. Everyone on the team will be able to give as many ideas as possible without any criticism or judgments made during any time they are being presented.
2. Welcome all ideas no matter how off-beat or silly they seem. This is a time to be creative. More ideas are the goal, you never know what will come up that might work.
3. No discussions are allowed during the entire brainstorming session. This is done after the ideas are place on the table.
4. There will not be any criticizing, judging, frowning, groaning or laughing. Every idea is to be treated as valid.
5. Build on the ideas of others
6. Have a flipchart, white board or something to write the ideas where the entire group can see
7. Time limit needs to be set for the session
Sequence of Brainstorming Rules
1. There will be one team member that will review the topic of the session.
Example:
Topic for the brainstorming session is developing a marketing strategy for brand X. What should we focus on as the headline?
2. The question will be thought about in silence for a minute or so. Then each person needs to write down their ideas on a piece of paper.
3. The ideas start to come out by everyone calling them out. You can also go around and let each one read their ideas while there is someone writing them on the board.
4. One team member writes down all ideas on board or flipchart.
Final Selection
1. Now, take the all the ideas and combine them.
2. Assign each idea a number
3. Each member will vote on the ideas and they will be listed by their numbers according their importance.
4. Once the votes are tallied, then the ideas that only have one or two votes are crossed out. Then there is another vote until there are only a few ideas left. Keep voting until there is a clear cut winner.
5. Vote again or discuss the ideas that are remaining to determine which idea will answer the original question best.
