Group Brainstorming
Group brainstorming is one of the best methods of getting things accomplished. That is partially because it can be very difficult to think of creative ideas on your own. There is a point where business innovation requires more than one great mind. Problem solving is especially tough when you’re on your own.
It truly doesn’t matter how smart you are, your brain can only handle so much on its own. If you haven’t tried group brainstorming yet, you’ll definitely want to start. It is really amazing how much lateral thinking gets done when you have a group of people doing the problem solving rather than just one or two.
In order to implement group brainstorming there are some steps that you need to follow. The first step is to get your group together. Make sure that everyone understands what you’re about to do. Put everyone’s mind at ease by clearly laying out the problem or idea so that everyone is on the same page.
It can really help your group brainstorming if you choose to do some mind mapping. Laying things out on paper or with software gives clear facilitation to your brainstorming and the ability to view the thinking that occurs in the room. Soon, you should start to see some real innovation occurring.
When you’re done brainstorming you can start to organize the information into different categories. These categories will contain the ideas you think are great, ok, and not workable. You might want to do this section privately so as not to hurt anyone’s feelings if their ideas are rejected.
When you have your “great” ideas ready you can begin to think about which one, or one’s you’d like to implement. You’ll be amazed at how easy this process is after your group brainstorming process. Chances are that the winning ideas are ones that you might never have thought of on your own.
One word of caution is to never go into a group brainstorming session thinking that you have all of the answers. It really pays off to listen to what others have to say because their ideas could be brilliant.
Group brainstorming is easy to implement and very effective. The people in your organization would probably love to take part. Take some of the pressure off of your own shoulders and give everyone the chance to let their voice be heard.
