The Downside With Brainstorming

With a point of frustration, I’ve learn a number of latest articles that headline a model of “Brainstorming doesn’t work”. These should not random critiques from beginner bloggers however critiques by students from world-renowned universities and skilled consultants making this proclamation. So why has Brainstorming fallen out of vogue with creativity and innovation specialists and is it really as problematic as reported?

Alex F. Osborne (the “O” within the wildly profitable promoting company BBDO through the many years following World Conflict Two) needed his artistic workforce to give you extra and higher concepts. The strategy which he known as “considering up” was designed to assault an issue like commandos storming an goal. The method was finally codified as brainstorming in his 1953 guide Utilized Creativeness.

Among the many issues brainstorming was designed to beat is how criticism from a pacesetter or colleague shuts down the era of latest concepts. One other aim was to deliver out the voices of timid contributors in groups by opening an area for a “free-wheeling” era of concepts.

Osborne’s guidelines for brainstorming had been this:

1. Judgment or criticism of concepts should be withheld till after the ideation course of.
2. Free-wheeling, or the era of untamed concepts, is inspired. “The wilder the concept, the higher; it’s simpler to tame down than to assume up.”
3. Amount is fascinating as a result of the extra concepts which are generated, the extra good ones there can be to glean later.
4. Enhancing on and mixing with different concepts is inspired.

Brainstorming is a way or device that’s a part of a broader set of instruments and processes that rigorous analysis has proven to be efficient within the era of artistic concepts that add worth. The Osborn/Parnes* artistic problem-solving course of is summarized as:

1. Clarifying the issue – figuring out if you’re fixing the suitable drawback
2. Ideating – producing a quantity of concepts, then utilizing standards to decide on the perfect 
3. Creating –prototyping, testing, and refining the brand new concepts, and
4. Implementation – placing the developed concept into motion, then analyzing the outcomes.

Vital at every stage of the artistic problem-solving course of is the dual perform of divergence and convergence. Put merely, divergence is producing a quantity of concepts, whereas convergence makes use of standards to pick out the perfect concepts to maneuver ahead to the subsequent part.

Bear in mind these rules and processes as a result of they’re key to an correct evaluation of brainstorming’s potential and shortcomings.

Listed here are oft-cited criticisms of brainstorming that justify the declare that it doesn’t work: 

• Folks hiding or placing forth much less effort when in groups (social loafing)
• Anxiousness or shyness about sharing concepts and going through public analysis
• The tendency of individuals in teams to coalesce round shared concepts and never diverge from the norm
• The shortcoming to spontaneously course of a big quantity of concepts, or voices getting drowned out by the gang

The problem of free-riding or lack of engagement in a course of exists in groups, but it surely can’t be blamed on brainstorming. Brainstorming was designed to get folks extra engaged within the ideation course of. Folks have artistic preferences. The work of Gerard Puccio of Buffalo State College and his colleagues demonstrates folks have completely different preferences at completely different phases of the artistic course of. For instance, Clarifiers like to ask the query “Are we fixing the suitable drawback?” however are much less energized by the opposite phases of the make clear, ideate, develop, and implement phases of artistic problem-solving. Ideators lean-in to the era of latest concepts however are much less excited by refining or implementing them. And completely different mixtures of those preferences exist in all of us. Any examine measuring ideation solely neglects these preferences as a elementary a part of any artistic work carried out in groups. After all, a few of us desire to freewheel and share concepts, whereas others would reasonably observe and modify these concepts through the improvement stage. 

That is the place range in groups is certainly our power. Our colleague Robert Alan Black says, “The query isn’t how artistic are you, however how are you artistic?” Matching folks to their preferences within the artistic course of maximizes their effectiveness. For instance, if you would like a lot of concepts in a brief interval ask Ideators, however heaven forbid you assign the identical group to do a fast implementation. They might drive you loopy producing new concepts far previous the time you had been already fine-tuning and implementing your answer.

Anxiousness and shyness are additionally actual phenomena in brainstorming. Folks censure themselves much more successfully than any exterior critic can. The interior voice that claims “Oh, I can’t share that concept – it’s too loopy” may be very efficient at throttling the wild concepts Osborn inspired. However this concern isn’t confined to brainstorming alone, nor a perform of Osborn’s strategy the place wild concepts are inspired. Just a few easy practices can loosen up contributors and assist them overcome their fears. Reframing issues by asking “What would an 8-year-old say?”, or “How would your favourite enterprise guru strategy this?” encourages new views and detaches concepts from egos. One can rationalize, in any case, it was the 8-year-old’s loopy concept, not mine. Different extra mechanical however no much less highly effective methods embrace brainwriting, the place folks write their concepts on sticky pads and go them round to construct on others’ concepts. This gives extra bandwidth the place tons of of concepts are generated and shared, versus tens of concepts in the identical period of time. It additionally minimizes judgment and censoring of concepts by the group, who’re all busy producing their concepts. 

The problem of central tendency, groupthink, or different phenomena the place folks coalesce across the standard concepts will be combatted by combining brainstorming with different instruments like compelled affiliation, the place the group is requested to take a previously unassociated concept and mix it with the concepts they’ve already give you. For instance, in case you brainstorm new concepts for a bath, you’ll get a specific amount of concepts, and most of these won’t be too divergent. However in case you ask, “What concepts come to thoughts for enhancing a bath once you have a look at bananas?” out of the blue the floodgates open and your bathtub concepts bloom with concepts like a peelable floor for cleansing, the colour of the bathtub altering with temperature just like the pores and skin on a banana adjustments coloration with age, and so forth. Wild concepts like a banana holder for the bathtub will be tamed right into a built-in snack tray. (I do discover it curiously amusing that after I use this instance it nearly at all times leads to somebody suggesting a wine dispenser). 

This brings up one other concern I’ve with critiques of brainstorming. Lots of them are primarily based on older research, which isn’t a problem in and of itself, however they are typically primarily based on a inhabitants of male school college students that lack the range of most workplaces in the present day. If you wish to supercharge the era of concepts, seize as many alternative folks, with completely different demographics, completely different backgrounds, and completely different life experiences as you possibly can. This creates a double good thing about inclusion and generative considering.  As a lot as I like ideating (and it’s my dominant choice) I shudder to assume how boring and lifeless the artistic course of can be if carried out by a cloned military of me. 

The final concern of methods to handle the amount of concepts with the bandwidth out there to a gaggle in a verbal brainstorming session is well addressed with methods like brainwriting. We’ve got instruments in the present day that Alex Osborn himself most likely couldn’t have dreamed of. Digital knowledge seize with instruments like digital flipcharts with sticky pads, real-time polling, and group editable paperwork, are available to anybody with an web connection. The power to document and transcribe digital discussions with video conferencing instruments is extremely highly effective for capturing each element of an ideation session. Now mix these with synthetic intelligence instruments’ skill to mine and summarize knowledge, and you’ve got a really strong surroundings for capturing and classifying the concepts of any measurement group distributed over any distance. 

In the end, what makes brainstorming work is a mix of the three Ps of creativity: 

• Course of, which incorporates not simply ideation instruments like brainstorming, however the full cycle of clarifying, ideating, growing, and implementing together with the suitable instruments and methods used at every part. 
• Folks, which is about assigning the suitable artistic choice to the suitable activity, and having skilled facilitators who know methods to ship the utmost profit from artistic teamwork.
• Place, which is creating an surroundings that empowers stakeholders with a bodily and psychologically secure area that permits concepts to movement freely. 

If we have a look at brainstorming within the context of a wider vary of actions that make up the artistic course of and honor the traditional guidelines for conducting a brainstorming session, the declare “ brainstorming doesn’t work” simply doesn’t maintain up. Throwing out brainstorming as a result of its greatest use requires some care is like throwing out the infant with the bathwater. Paraphrasing Alex Osborn, The wilder the brainstorming course of the higher, it’s simpler to repair brainstorming than to assume up a greater course of for producing new concepts.