Why does brainstorming fail

At the employee level, creativity results from a combination of expertise, motivation, and thinking skills. At the team level, it results from the synergy between team members, which allows the group to produce something greater than the sum of its parts. Brainstorming is based on four rules : a generate as many ideas as possible; b prioritize unusual or original ideas; c combine and refine the ideas generated; and d abstain from criticism during the exercise.

The process, which should be informal and unstructured, is based on two old psychological premises. Second, that quantity eventually leads to quality.

Yet after six decades of independent scientific research, there is very little evidence for the idea that brainstorming produces more or better ideas than the same number of individuals would produce working independently. First, the organizer could try to run it and participate in it. This is quite natural. We are often compelled to call a meeting because the topic is of interest to ourselves and thus we want to participate in it.

So is acting as a resource, a problem-solver, a brainstormer. The alternative is running it and not playing. Have someone outside of your team facilitate the meeting.

Especially if we are close to the subject, we think we know enough to say definitively yea or nay to certain ideas. With everyone in the same room, each group can voice their preferred idea.

From there, everyone can contribute more solutions, combine ideas, and expand on existing approaches. Done right, the groups in the room will gradually evolve from feeling ignored to feeling empowered. From here, you can ask the participants to vote for their favorite ideas. Each person gets a discrete number of votes, usually a fraction of the total ideas on the board: say, 10 votes per person to pick from among 50 total solutions.

Simply being part of the process is enough for people to feel they had their say, and that they participated in the ultimate outcome. For big company decisions, or policies that might disadvantage one group in favor of another, a quick brainstorm session can lead to a bad outcome. Instead, save consensus-by-brainstorm for those lingering, medium-sized problems that have already hung around longer than they should.

Suppose, however, that your goal really is idea generation. Try reorganizing your brainstorm in one of the following ways. Each approach maximizes the best parts of brainstorming while avoiding the pitfalls. By Matthew Braga. By Drew Pearce. By Mike Sholars. By Tomi Akitunde. By Devon Murphy. By David Vallance. In the future, we may send you information about Dropbox products and services.

In the future we may email about Dropbox products and services. Thank you! A confirmation email has been sent. Great fire departments practice. They practice so that when they must perform at peak effectiveness under stressful conditions, they can execute well. It has probably been a while. Practice being creative by warming up. During a warm-up session, give the group a time limit five minutes is recommended and a quota for the number of ideas generated Many of the ideas will be absurd or impractical, which is intentional.

Most people believe that creativity is coming up with a great idea, but the key to creativity is solving the right problem. Challenge your initial impression of the problem. This process is not about generating ideas. It is about generating questions that challenge your initial definition of the problem. Generate ideas after you have clearly identified the problem to solve.