as for “strategic stimulus,” it breaks out in two ways. Inside out stimulus and outside in stimulus. Inside out stimulus might be bringing in packaging from around the world (i.e. Asia is amazing in what they can do with technology) if you’re working on a packaging problem. Who is doing it the best? Who within our set has taken it to new places. “Outside in” stimulus is using anything to get your perspective to a new place. in other words, stimulus that has nothing to do with your category or competitive set. For instance, for the same packaging assignment maybe stimulus can come from nature or from anything you random pull out of a junk drawer at home. That might be diversity from within your world, and diversity from outside it.

Gary

Diversity is driving me. At least at the moment. I just finished editing Vern Burkhardt’s interview with Scott Page about his book The Difference, which is big on diversity.

The Power of Diversity.

Too many of the same size and shape heads make for less effective brainstorming.

In your October 5th comment, you support Graham Horton’s call for “useful changes of perspective” but add the idea of focus with your call for “strategic stimulus.”

The question begged here is, how focused or strategic? How as in how much or to what degree, and how in the sense of “like what?”

I agree that stimulus should be very stimulating. So that settles that part of the question. But I have concerns about how limiting or broadening the stimulus should be.

What do you recommend?

Peter

Thanks for pointing out the flip-chart bottleneck. I can hardly think of a more inefficient way to gather the ideas that come from a group, much less from a group of intelligent and creative people.

And not just because the just-post-cave-drawing technique of converting words to symbols with the human hand with a marker on a surface is about as slow as one can get. The facilitator, that is, almost all those I’ve seen, can’t help but edit and censor on the spot.

Also, the entire group is forced to sit quietly, (i.e., not generate) as the facilitator scribbles, so often in a hand that few can read!

Your second problem, evaluation apprehension, also resonates with my experience. It deserves a book… okay, maybe just a pamphlet. Some facilitators have gone so far as to remind participants to keep their contributions within certain limits. No “this,” no “that” ideas.

These kinds of limitations tend to make a facilitator’s role less like facilitation and more like performance.

Peter

Thanks for your comments!

But, sorry, I can’t let you leave it at “(because brainstorming won’t work).” And tucking it away in parentheses, won’t let you wiggle out. What do you mean, brainstorming won’t work, for Pete’s sake?

You framed your prophecy of doom in the context of classical brainstorming. So the question, more specifically, is “what is it about classical brainstorming that won’t work?”

I will add my other comments is separate responses.

Peter

Or, as Morpheus in the Matrix said “It is the question that drives us?”

SO what question is driving you?

I’ve always believe that a bunch of people sitting around talking about things they already know isn’t a brainstorming session, it’s a status meeting. Great brainstorming sessions are built around “strategic stimulus.” Anything that forces our mind into a difference place to look for solutions is a good thing. That could mean locating the session somewhere interesting and unexpected, or using strategic objects or ideas as possible jump offs for new thinking. While it isn’t new to “force associations”, done with surprise and clear sense of strategy, and a group can’t help but be more creative and productive.

Gary

for example, it depends on
- what kind of problem you are trying to solve
- how experienced and competent the participants are
- how many people are involved
- what you mean by “brainstorming”

if by brainstorming you mean classical brainstorming, and you are looking for new ideas for a tough problem, then the answer is: “don’t!” (because brainstorming won’t work)

on the other hand, if you are just looking to collect the thoughts a given set of people have on a certain subject, then classical brainstorming is fine.

in this case, the first answer is, of course, osborn’s rules for brainstorming:
- separate criticism from ideation
- encourage cross-pollination (i.e. build on ideas already presented)
- prefer quantity to quality
- encourage wild ideas (you can always tone them down later, if needed)

the two biggest brainstorming problems to avoid are:
- blocking (there is a bottleneck in the process which prevents participants from making contributions. in classical brainstorming this is usually the facilitator himself/herself paying attention to, repeating and writing down individual contributions on a flipchart)
- evaluation apprehension (unwillingness to say something controversial for fear of criticism, especially from colleagues or the boss)

almost all ideation tasks are non-trivial, i.e. your participants will not be able to come up with good ideas unaided. if they weren’t, people would have already come up with adequate solutions on their own. in this case then your greatest need is for useful changes of perspective. for example:
- how would darth vader solve this problem?
- how can we make the product more convenient?
- how could we portray extreme usage of the product?
- what would google do in our situation?
- aardvark!

for me, this is easily the most important success factor. finding good changes of perspective is the core competence in the art of facilitating ideation sessions.

regards

graham (http://www.zephram.de/blog/profil-von-graham)

Thanks for a lot of help. Not just above but in your article link.

I wonder, if we have to always think of brainstorming as an in-person process. If we want to compete by generating bigger ideas faster, do you think online brainstorming can beat live brainstorming in speed and efficiency?

Is keeping it live with travel, overnights, breaks, and all that worth the benefit of eye-to-eye, hand-to-hand, personal dynamics?

Or by continuing to meet are we continuing to suffer the same shortcomings of live ideation?

PS: Point 3. Is that why you’ve had me in some of your sessions?