“It’s better to have enough ideas for some of them to be wrong, than to be always right by having no ideas at all.”

–Edward de Bono, best-selling author of Six Thinking Hats and Lateral Thinking

Have you ever been in a brainstorming meeting that went on seemingly forever without yielding any useful or actionable ideas?

Was everyone shouting at once, or worse – not saying anything at all?

Some team meetings devolve into uninspired, idea-less vacuums even if they are attended by talented, creative and brilliant individuals. Strange, isn’t it?

Regardless, brainstorming sessions can be really useful for participatory discussions, idea-generation and problem-solving – but only if managed well!

So how can you transform your brainstorming meetings from bland, boring and unproductive to an idea-generating machine?

Here are 5 great ideas that work with any firm in any industry!

1: Engage a facilitator

The facilitator’s role is to control the meeting and ensure that participants’ focus does not waver from the agenda – to generate ideas. He or she will ensure that the group stays on track, and will bring them back if they happen to stray.

The facilitator can be the team manager, the meeting coordinator and even an ‘outsider’ like an HR person.

2: Create a safe space for participants

Not everyone is comfortable speaking in public. Before the meeting starts, make it clear that everyone will get a chance to speak without fear or judgement or ridicule. Make sure you follow up on this claim – listen to every thought or idea even if some of them are ultimately rejected (see #4).

Knowing that they won’t be criticised or laughed at can encourage the shyer participants to leave aside their reservations and express their opinions more openly.

3: Try role-playing

Think role-playing is silly or ineffective in a professional setting? Think again!

Role-playing can generate a lot of good ideas because it forces people to temporarily set aside their own personalities, assumptions and pre-conceived notions, and pretend to be someone else for the benefit of the larger group.

Once members become more comfortable with the activity, they will be able to empathise with problems and concerns from another perspective. Together, you can then take ideas from each viewpoint and work on possible solutions.

4: Make time for idea analysis and discussion – at the end

Many brainstorming meetings fail in the first few minutes because participants mix up idea-generation with idea discussion and analysis. When this happens, a lot of ideas get rejected that might have been good, while many bad ideas get adopted even though they shouldn’t.

Time your meeting and split it into 2 phases:

• Phase 1: Generate any and all ideas
• Phase 2: Discuss ideas

Use any mechanism necessary to gather a number of ideas during Phase 1. Even old-fashioned post-it notes work! The trick is to not to accept or reject any idea in this phase. Leave that for Phase 2. This takes the pressure off, generates a lot more ideas and makes the meeting much more productive.

5: Think out of the box: Use ‘reverse thinking’

This idea can be quite effective as well.

Many people find it easier to think negatively than positively. So, instead of asking participants for ideas to solve a problem, ask them to think of ways on how they could absolutely ruin a project.

Thinking in such terms can generate a lot of useful ideas for how to save the project from ruin.

For example, if the best way to ruin a company’s customer relationships is to refuse to talk to customers, how can the company make these relationships better? By talking to customers maybe?

Final thoughts…

All these brainstorming methods may not be appropriate for your team. Use trial and error to find the idea that works best for you but don’t give up – brainstorming can be a very useful tool! In fact, some of the world’s best ideas have come out of sessions that might have never happened if the manager had not said, “Time to brainstorm, team. Let’s go!”

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