How to Develop a Brainstorm Agenda

A brainstorm is a meeting like any other, which means an agenda can be extremely helpful to keep order and focus.

Give yourself a few minutes in advance of the brainstorm to consider:

Why you want to bring people together
What you want to accomplish
Who can help you reach your objective
Where is the most productive place
When are people going to be free, or thinking their best, and most of all,
How you want to spend your time.

Regardless of whether you use a facilitator or not, you should consider too your own participation. Without meeting you, I’d argue your best role is to participate, not necessarily lead your own meeting. (The article talks about hiring someone, but you may simply need to identify someone in-house you trust and has a bit of experience or interest to do it.)

Here’s the basic brainstorm agenda

Here’s a basic brainstorm agenda you can adapt to suit your needs, location, participants or brainstorm topic. The timings are suggestive, not actual.

In Advance of the Brainstorm

Work with your team to prepare a creative brief.
- If not a full brief, at least the basic information on a single page to help guide the participants.
- Did you hear me? Only one page! Do not overwhelm people before they arrive.
- Consider sharing the brief in advance with at least one person to see if you’ve covered off what they need (not what you want to tell them).
- Yes, we’re all busy, but , prompt their subconscious with a key insight in hopes they may come to the brainstorm with some rough ideas to start.
- If nothing else, a good brief also saves time at the beginning of your brainstorm.
Distribute the brief no more than 24 hours in advance.
But no one reads the brief in advance! (See far below for suggestions.)

Here’s more detail on what to do .

Introduction – no more than 10 minutes

Define the problem
Review the creative rules (See related post: )
Quickly answer any questions from your participants, but don’t waste time re-reading your brief (That’s why you sent the brief in advance.)

Icebreaker – 10 minutes

Lead with a creative jump-start or icebreaker to get people in an Open Mindset
- They likely arrived in the , which means it’ll take you longer to get to idea generation
- If you can, link the icebreakers to your brainstorm topic or issue

Here are two posts with specific suggestions for icebreakers. Icebreakers #1 and Icebreakers #2

Idea generation – 30-45 minutes

Move directly from the jump-start to brainstorming ideas (Often this happens naturally)
As the idea generation slows, use to keep the momentum going
Use the exercise for as long as it’s helpful, then discard and try another.

Sort and organise – 15-20 minutes

Reveal the idea to the participants and quickly explain.
Ask the participants to select the best ideas.
At the same time, ask people to help cluster similar ideas together. And/or, build on ideas you like but which aren’t yet a ‘complete’ idea.
Brainstorm further, if you have both time and the participants’ energy.
Finish by thanking everyone for their help and participation.

Don’t rush this: it’s important to see what you’ve got.

If not, what to do next?
An? Do you need another meeting?

A simple way to improve a brainstorm: “homework”

Ask participants to do a simple pre-brainstorm activity. One of the simplest is ask participants to visit a website, trial a product, etc. It’s key to ask them to record their thoughts while doing it, not just relying upon memory at the brainstorm itself. Another option is to ask people to bring in photographs or visuals of the situation, the problem, the target audience, anything that fits and is relevant.

When we conducted a brainstorm to promote a new toothpaste, we asked the participants to brush their teeth with the new product before the brainstorm began – and then immediately record 10 adjectives they felt their mouth might say if we could ask it directly in a focus group. One of the participants said: “the colour of white” – which became the campaign theme for the award-winning program.

For a brainstorm to increase consumption of orange juice, we gave everyone a sample box of the beverage. The next morning, we asked them to record all of their morning activities – before, during and after drinking orange juice. When we began the brainstorm, we asked everyone to share their responses. One person said they drank their juice while doing the morning crossword puzzle – which led to the idea of sponsoring the national crossword puzzle championships.

But people’s don’t read the brief in advance!

No, they often don’t – and usually with good reason. Here’s a few tips specific to this problem.

Make the brief brief – not too complex or too long to read quickly.
If time is limited between distribution and brainstorm, highlight key sections of the brief. Give them just enough information to be dangerous.
Deliver the brief in person. People don’t read something by e-mail just because you sent it to them.
If it’s obvious that most people have not read the brief in advance, give everyone just 3-4 minutes to speed-read it.
Return the respect and courtesy when someone asks you to read a brief in advance.

Personally, I’ve always loved this “brainstorm mandatory” used by Proctor & Gamble’s innovation unit: “Arrive on time with your homework done.”

What happens if we don’t have enough time?

Not ideal, but also likely. If you are limited on time, try these “quick steps.”

Limit to 2-3 good ‘idea’ people
Write a one-paragraph creative brief, including Goal/Purpose, Problem, Insight, Target Audience
Stand up around a flipchart attached to wall (no one takes notes)
You (as leader) review quickly the brief (1 minute or less), answer questions
Brainstorm for 20 minutes

Anything else you’ve done to set an agenda for a brainstorm? Or, any thoughts on brainstorming generally? Please add your thoughts or comments below.