Effective Brainstorming

Abstract

Brainstorming is a creative process where people get together in order to generate ideas about a particular problem and it is considered as the dominant idea-generation technique.

It was not communicated as a formal creative process until Alex Osborn detailed the practice in the book Your creative power in 1948.

The goal of brainstorming is to provide possibilities and not – as often mistaken- solutions to the problem. Group dynamics play a huge role in the effectiveness of a brainstorming session. When individuals generate ideas alone, no one disagrees or judges the quality of an idea or the one of the idea owner. But when many people are brought together, the potential for all of that exists. Ergo, the key to brainstorming is creating an environment that encourages a spectrum of ideation. [1]

An effective brainstorming session requires all the participants to have a clear understanding of the problem and its context and acknowledge the defined and necessary steps of the process. Moreover, it is imperative that everyone is equal and shares different perspectives.

In this article, the key aspects of a successful brainstorming session will be analyzed, as well as the constraints affecting each of them. Apart from the Osborn’s method, various brainstorming techniques will be presented, and the importance of the facilitator as a key-role will be explained.

Origin of Brainstorming

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References

[1] Osborn, A.F. (1963) Applied imagination: Principles and procedures of creative problem solving (Third Revised Edition). New York, NY: Charles Scribner’s Sons.