Effective Brainstorming

Developed by Alexandros Bellos

Abstract

Brainstorming is a data gathering and creative thinking process widely used in project management, where groups of people, or teams, get together in order to generate ideas and possible solutions about a specific common problem or area of interest. It was not communicated as a formal creative process until Alex Osborn detailed the practice in the book Your creative power in 1948. Currently, as a research-based divergent thinking tool, recommended also in the PMBOK® Guide, brainstorming is considered as one of the dominant idea-generation techniques.

In almost every project, creative thinking on a daily basis is a vital element for the project success. Therefore, in order to achieve that and reach their team's common goals, project managers often organize brainstorming sessions and have the role of facilitator.

Typically, a brainstorming session is structured in a way that participants share different perspectives, experiences, lessons learned about the problem and their ideas are recorded for later analysis. All the participants need 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.

Group dynamics can be proven crucial for the effectiveness of a brainstorming session. When individuals generate ideas alone, no one disagrees or judges the quality of an idea or its owner. On the contrary, during a brainstorming session, participants are actively engaged in discussion, increasing the amount of generated ideas and possible solutions. Ergo, the key to brainstorming is creating an environment that encourages a spectrum of ideation.

In the following article, the origin of brainstorming from the Osborn's method and the term of creative thinking will be analyzed, followed by the key aspects and their constraints, for a successful and effective brainstorming session that project managers need to take into consideration. Finally, various types of brainstorming techniques will be presented, and the importance of the facilitator as a key-role will be explained.

Overview of Brainstorming

Creativity and Creative Thinking

People’s mind generates a concept and afterwards explores the value of that concept. Altough some of these concepts do not make sense originally, after connecting them to possible benefits and establishing logical connections, the result can often be a solution to a problem.

Creativity is a total package of attitude, thinking skills, thinking techniques and thinking processes which enlarge the capability to break through the pattern thinking and to establish new connections in our brain. Creativity is a very important skill for everyone, especially for engineers, when the need of generation of ideas or solutions for different problems and issues arises, not only in extraordinary situations but also in daily life. Although it is ocassionally perceived as an inherited trait, it is in fact a soft skill and can thus be further developed and improved through training. Creative thinking is the art of breaking with patterns, habits and certainties and the art whereby something new is formed, which is somehow valuable. It can be affected by various factors, such as the current mindset, the techniques used to empower it and the different types of environment. In most of the organizations nowadays, creative thought provides the basis for any organization’s attempts to adapt to change. Ergo, creative thinking might have crucial effect on long-term organizational performance.

Facilitating group creativity

Apart from individual creative thinking, it is important for every project and organization in general, to be able to facilitate group creativity in a way that will maximize the potential benefits. Firstly, both the problem itself and the identified constraints around it should be clear and understood by every group member, since without constraints the ideation will lack focus. Moreover, not all problem-solving techniques are suitable for every case. For that reason, it is necessary that according to the group of people that will participate and the circumstances affecting them, the best technique to be chosen. By defining the size of the group and creating a list of components, attributes and, it is ensured that participants will be actively engaged and that they are aware of every step of the procedure.

Origin of Brainstorming

Creativity can thrive in an environment where the flow of ideas is encouraged, without criticism, thus, creative thinking is a core element of brainstorming. In 1939, Alex Osborn, an advertising executive and co-founder of Batten, Barton, Durstine & Osborn (BBDO), urged by the ineffectiveness that his working environment encountered during the business meetings at that time, started his research on creative-thinking and creative problem-solving methods. In 1942, his book "How to Think Up" was published, and the term "Think Up" was firstly introduced, which was later also mentioned and became widely known as "Brainstorming", at his book "Your creative power", which was published in 1948.Osborn, among others, suggested to use the brain in order to storm a particular problem. In 1953, his book “Applied Imagination: Principles and Procedures of Creative Problem Solving” was published, which made the brainstorming technique widely popular.

Osborn’s method was based on the principle that people should free their minds and be encouraged to generate ideas rather than be afraid of being criticized. At his “conference technique, where a group of people generate ideas, attempting to find solution to a specific problem”, Osborne suggested four key rules, that if followed, could result in a great amount of high-quality ideas, and therefore, higher possibility for tackling the problem:

• Refrain from criticism and judgement of ideas, especially before the session is over.
• Focus should not be put on the quality, but on the quantity of ideas
• Radical ideas should be encouraged
• Improvement of existing ideas and possible combination of them should also be encouraged

Application of Osborn's Brainstorming Technique

Before a brainstorming session is applied, it is very important for the project manager to take into consideration the key rules of Osborn. In that way, participants will be inspired by the creative environment and the effectiveness of the session will be maximized.

Problem Statement

The first step of a brainstorming session is the Problem Statement, where the issue is described consicely, including its parameters that should be solved or improved. The problem statement must be understood by all participants before proceeding with the procedure, since it is the basis and the focus area of the whole session. Moreover, the problem should be realistic, with feasible possible solutions. The problem statement can be summarized in the following steps:

1. Briefing by the owner of the problem, which is summarised in a question, by focusing on the question of ‘one concrete single target” (Osborn 1960)
2. Making clear who the problem owner is
3. Exploring the why and how questions
4. Clarification and explanation
5. Individual reformulation of the question
6. Definitive question statement
7. Confirm that the problem is understood and that participants have no further questions related to it

Divergent Phase

The second step is the divergent phase. During the divergent phase, participants are encouraged to generate as many innovative and radical ideas as possible, by freeing their imagination without being afraid of judgement and critisism. It is important that keep in mind that:

• Clear rules, which prevents that we start to think in old patterns
• Many ideas mean many opportunities
• All ideas are precious
• Lift on others there ideas
• All ideas are written down

Convergent phase & Decision making

During the convergent phase, the facilitator urges the participants to examine all the ideas generated at the divergent phase and frame them by taking into account the constraints of the problem. When you choose, it is important to do it with this mind-set: - Keeping the original goal and the problem statement in mind - Thinking possible opportunities that can derive from each of the mentioned ideas - Examining how these ideas can be translated into an action plan

Different phases of Brainstorming Session.