Common Mistakes in Brainstorming

Many moons ago, I was asked to give a presentation on common brainstorming mistakes to a lovely group of people at Worldcom Public Relations Group, the largest partnership of P.R. firms worldwide, with more than 100 firms around the globe.

Entitled 11 Great Creative Slip-Ups, my sponsors asked me to turn them into a PDF to share with the agencies after my presentation.

Over time, the agencies generously gave me their own opinions, suggestions and their own personal examples. I re-edited the presentation, turning each of the 11 topics into the posts on this website for everyone to access and use.

Slip-Ups?

Yes, I deliberately called them creative slip-ups.

First of all, they’re all a bit humorous. (Or maybe I think we should laugh more at ourselves and our mistakes in life.)

They are all understandable, relatively minor, often humourous – and most of important of all – common mistakes in brainstorming.

All of these slip-ups are usually caused by an genuine need. But, they were made worse by an error in judgment, a bit of ignorance, or some simple inattention.

In turn, this affected the quality and effectiveness of brainstorming, for either their organisation internally or for their external clients.

As a (former) creative director, I am guilty of every single slip-up posted here. Over time, I learned to fix each issue through my trial-and-error attempts with my own clients, picking up tips from other creative directors in my network, hearing suggestions and hints from the good folks at Worldcom, and the ongoing readers of this website.

Enough of the intro!

11 Common Mistakes in Brainstorming

Here are my top 11 slip-ups with suggestions to adjust the brainstorm process accordingly.

#1. Starting the brainstorm with the same vague objective.

Try: Change your perspective.

#2. Coming to the brainstorm in the wrong mindset.

Try: Get people into an open mindset.

#3. Using shallow research to make strategic decisions.

Try: Uncover a true insight.

#4. Thinking the target audience is simply a statistic.

Try: Empathise with your target audience.

#5. Spending more time on strategy than on creativity.

Try: Brainstorm early and as often as possible.

#6. Brainstorming without any tools, games or props – or food!

Try: Use mental stimuli for brainstorming.

#7. Forcing people to brainstorm in the same way.

Try: Leverage people’s differences.

#8. Listening too often to our negative inner voice.

Try: Don’t be your own worst (creative) enemy.

Also, some additional points on the 10 qualities of a good brainstorm facilitator.

#9. Getting too close to the clients, their issues and – worst of all – their politics.

Try: Let someone else brainstorm for you.

Also, a follow-up post: Is Knowledge Helpful or Hurtful?

#10. Avoiding anything risky!

Try: Be risky with your ideas.

#11. Generating ideas (and creativity as a whole) is largely an invisible process

Try: Make the creativity visible.

Obviously, these are all my opinion, but I’d love to hear about any common mistakes in brainstorming that affected the quality of your own ideation sessions, either inside your organisation or involving an external client.

Please feel free to comment below, or on any of the specific posts. Enjoy!