Finishing a Brainstorm: Overview

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 parallel steps.  Each examines and analyses the initial ideas on the flip charts, and finds ways to transition them into something useful and tangible.

Using a bit of helpful spelling, the three phases (sort of) rhyme:

1. Clarify means using explicit and agreed-upon criteria to quickly sort the 10% good ideas from the 90% not-so-good ideas.  The problem often arises because people don’t consider how they’re going to choose the best ideas when the time comes.  Many will use emotional triggers.  “I’ll know if when I see it” is a common refrain, which leads to my response:  “No, you won’t.”  This post not only explains the reasoning, but include same creative criteria.  You can also check out an earlier post on the 90-10 Rule.

2. Amplify means to combine and merge the average, mediocre and half-ideas together, creative better ideas.  In more than 30+ years running brainstorms, I have never seen a single idea come out perfectly in a brainstorm.  Every idea needs to be adapted, improved, edited or expanded, or more often than not, merged with other ideas to create a more comprehensive, better idea.  To not analyse and critique each idea before selecting the best idea is almost a waste of time.  If you don’t know the differences between Analytical and Critical Thinking skills, check out this post.

3. Verify means to check to ensure the ideas will do what you need them to do.  If there’s one thing that often tripped me up when finishing a brainstorm, I often got caught up in my own excitement about a specific idea.  (Worst of all, I got caught up in my excitement about my own ideas.)  Think of it this way:  ideas that don’t fix or improve the problem are bad ideas.  (Big tangent here:  Do bad ideas have any value?)

How do you go about finishing a brainstorm?  Please add your comments and opinion below.  Thank you!