There’s more to finishing a brainstorm than simply calling the meeting to an end. The last 15-20 minutes should be devoted to wrapping up a brainstorm in three steps.
- – Use specific criteria (“creative criteria”) to objectively selet the best ideas
- – Make the average ideas better
- – Check to make sure your ideas will achieve its objective(s)
Each step has a follow-up article with more depth. Click on the sub-heads below to read more on finishing a brainstorm.
Finishing a Brainstorm, In Order
1. Clarify which ideas meet the criteria you need to solve the problem
Using explicit and agreed-upon creative criteria to review all of the ideas helps you sort the very good ideas from the lackluster ideas (aka or the 90-10 Rule.)
Don’t wander into a brainstorm and not know your criteria. You’ll use emtional triggers, or worse, you’ll hear the common (and unfortunate) refrain from the brainstorm sponsor: “I’ll know if when I see it.” My response: “No, you won’t.”
If you don’t have good criteria to find the right idea, you’ll keep returning to brainstorming with little to no direction. This never-ending cycle of brainstorming is called . Avoid at all costs.
2. Amplify by making average ideas even better
By the end of a brainstorm, you’ll likely have a lot of average, mediocre and half-ideas that need additional work. Rarely have I ever come out of a brainstorm with a perfectly formed idea. Instead, every idea – even the good ones – might be adapted, improved, edited or expanded to make a even more comprehensive, better idea.
You’ll also need your Analytical and Critical Thinking skills at this point, either to gauge the individual qualities of one idea, or to appropriately critique ideas by comparing them with each other. If you want a refresher, try this post.
3. Verify by checking the ideas will do what you need them to do
If there’s one thing that has tripped me up in the past, I get caught up in my own excitement about a specific idea. What are the chances your idea will ‘fix’ the problem? Do we need a Plan B? Is the idea so risky that it needs its own issues or risk management plan? Don’t go too far down the implementation path without some hard questions about tweaking the idea just a bit more to ensure success.
How do you go about finishing a brainstorm? Please add your comments and opinion below. Thank you!
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