Like a good party, it’s important to create the right brainstorm atmosphere.
It’s more than just the room itself. In his book Creative Thinking in the Decision and Management Sciences, James R. Evans points out that “intellectual playfulness” (that is, to have an extremely open mind) is one of the most critical elements of the brainstorm process.
Having fun or adding humour is important because it frees people from negative thinking, but at the same time, stimulates thinking that will go beyond the pedestrian. Humour allows people to have fun with the problem, or look to different solutions – often unusual solutions.
This doesn’t mean to have a laugh-fest without purpose. It means allowing people to explore new avenues and thought by brainstorming n a risk-free environment and atmosphere.
In short, if it’s not going to be fun, forget it.
Or as a dear mentor once said, “Brainstorming is the single opportunity to be silly and foolish at work. Why would you give up that opportunity?”
Indeed.
How To Create the Right Atmosphere for Brainstorming
Remember, atmosphere means both coordinating the physical room and protecting and encouraging the open emotional mind.
Without any hesitation, the absolute first step is to create a safe atmosphere for participants to contribute.
If participants don’t feel they can contribute without having their ideas – or their person – being criticised, it doesn’t matter how much time and energy you put into brainstorming planning. You’ll end up with no good ideas.
This means you must …
Have rules and guides to keep productivity at the fore-front, and
An experienced facilitator who can balance conversation, conflict and time.
Bring the right information to the brainstorm.
Organise the key background information to help guide and focus the participants on the task at hand. A creative brief is ideal, but if not, identify and share with your team the …
- Brainstorm purpose
- Goal or objective the ideas must help achieve
- The specific problem or issue to address
- The audience, including their wants and needs
- Insights into the situation, audience, expectations
- General background like timing, budget parametes.
Also, a housekeeping tip: have the necessary supplies.
Have plenty of food and beverages.
We’re not talking laying out a smorgasboard. But like a car needing petrol to run, the brain needs fuel to stimulate creative thinking.
Food and beverages with caffeine and sugar are good – hello chocolate! – particularly natural sugar such as fresh fruit.
Lots of people ask if it’s OK to serve alcohol. Chemically, alcohol is a depressant which means it slows down brain activity. But on the other hand, it also frees a lot of people’s thinking … so use your best judgement.
Have games and exercises to kick-start the brain – and keep it stimulated.
To continue to car analogy, think of ice-breakers as letting a car warm up after starting it in the winter. Once you’ve engaged the brain, exercises keep it stimulated through exercises which use the basic elements of creativity, such as free association, metaphors, attribute listing, combining and merging, evolution, mind mapping and others.
Schedule your brainstorm when attendees’ brains are most active.
Granted, this one’s not always easy to implement. But, when I have the opportunity, I try to schedule two brainstorms: one in the morning for those who are more alert then, or one in the afternoon, for those who come alive at the end of day. While I’m all for food and beverages for brainstorms, I’m not a big fan of brainstorms over lunch. How can you say your ideas if your mouth is full?
Minimise distractions.
Modern technology has its value, but generally in brainstorms it gets in the way of idea generation. That said, there’s ways to integrate the internet and its tools into brainstorms. I love Google Images for visual stimulation, or smartphones for looking up quick facts. Generally, keep them handy but under control.
The easiest tip of all? Stand up.
Doesn’t it make sense that the brain ‘relaxes’ when the body is idle? Standing up simply gets more blood moving, and more blood moving increases the brain’s creative effectiveness.
You might also want to check out three related posts: What to do Before the Brainstorm, During the Brainstorm and After the Brainstorm.
You may also have issues to address. Check out Is Bad Brainstorm Behaviour Acceptable?
Finally, this article is brilliant in outlining ways to help introverted people in brainstorms. Check out 10 New Rules of Brainstorming Without Alienating Introverts
What other things have you done to stimulate the right brainstorm atmosphere? Please add your thoughts and comments below.
My Brainstorm Rules
Brainstorm rules are all over the internet. Here are the rules I prefer, but adapt to suit your goals, situation and/or participants.
Set expectations from the start.
Purpose, problem, audience and their wants/needs, insights.
Defer judgement.
Do not judge your or others’ ideas. Do not hatch and grade. (See #5 in this post to define ‘hatch and grade.’)
Go for volume.
Go for quantity over quality at the start. You need to overcome Sturgeon’s Law.
Keep conversation focused.
Keep the attention on the challenge or problem. Minimise side-conversations if irrelevant.
Encourage out of the box ideas.
No Big Idea has ever been safe. You must move past the assumptions of what can be done to create new and better ideas.
Build on ideas.
Like improvisation, encourage “and” over “but”.
Merge, combine, edit, force-fit ideas together.
Write down all ideas.
It may not be a great idea on the surface, but if you don’t write it down, how will another person potentially improve it, turning it into an even better idea?
Be visual.
The brain does not think in black and white, nor in words. Pull out the colours and images to inspire
Always have supplies and games at-the-ready.
Time is limited. Don’t waste it by not having the right tools. And, attention and focus will waver so have games and exercise to keep the mind stimulated.
Get a facilitator if you need an objective person for balance.
The two operative words: objective (no bias) and balanced (everyone has a say).
If you have any other suggestions for rules, please add them below.
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