Photo of Brainstorming at IDEO (www.ideo.com)

Innovation in products, services and business models is cited as the only way out of the recession. Within organisations, innovating how we come up with new ideas to existing problems (or opportunities and challenges) can produce great results and ultimately create competitive advantage.

Applying the elements of creative brainstorming set out below allows space for fresh thinking and supports the generation of unique ideas.

To really engage the group and get things off to a flying start the facilitator should start the session by ensuring everyone is clear on the ground rules and expectations of the session. This is particularly important in organisations that don’t have a strong culture of innovation or applying creative problem solving techniques to problems.  And it will help the participants to take a break from self-censoring and over-focus on identifying the “right answer”: definite blocks to creative brainstorming.

Again, depending on the organisation these may differ but typically include the following:

Remind participants that at this stage it’s about quantity of ideas and all  judgement is suspended (‘til the idea evaluation stage)
All contributions and  ideas are welcome (no matter how seemingly unworkable)
Remind participants of the need for great communication
Explain (briefly) how ideas will be evaluated
The facilitator also encourages input from everyone attending. Again, the culture of some organisations may be such that individuals don’t feel safe speaking up and (even harder to do) put their idea out there. And, for creative brainstorming, it’s really important to hear from everyone and not just the people who always speak up; often, it’s the people keeping quiet that have new insights and the best ideas to contribute.

It makes sense that framing the problem in the right way moves participants closer to identifying the right answers. A quick way is to start with “How can I” or “How to” and write five possible endings; the one that resonates most and contains the essence of what you want to achieve is the real question. e.g. How to generate more revenue for Product x. Too often, we limit the possible responses to a problem by framing the range of answers in the question we pose e.g. How to generate 10% more revenue for Product x

The next step is to set the context of the session by (briefly) communicating:

What has been already tried or considered?
What’s the desired outcome of the session?
What’s the ideal solution to the problem?

It’s important not to spend too much time getting stuck into the detail of the problem, rather it’s best to save that energy for idea generation.

There are many different techniques that can be used; all should ensure that the group focuses on coming up with lots of fresh ideas; please see below 3 sample techniques:

1. We don’t see things as they are, we see things as we are (Anais Nin)Ask the participants if they could swap places with anyone in the world who would that be? Then, as that person, how would they approach this task; what would they do about solving this problem? e.g. How would Barack Obama face that particular task?

2. Wishful Thinking: Invite participants to dream up their ideal solution if the usual practical parameters and conventions didn’t apply. Ask them to imagine having unlimited power/resources and what would they do then with this  particular problem. Each idea must begin with “I wish” ( www.synectics.com)

3. Identify (and transform) limiting assumptions : Ask participants to identify what assumptions they have about the problem; these assumptions are frequently based on the past and how things have always been done here. Being aware of these assumptions is a great first step in turning them around and generating fresh thinking.

Idea Evaluation: While a full overview of idea evaluation is beyond the scope of this article an initial starting point is to ask the problem owner to identify the ideas that resonate most for them and begin to look at the feasibility of making them actionable. Working with the group they would then confirm specific actions within an agreed timeframe.

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