How to lead
A Good Brainstorming Session
Brainstorming Done Right!
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hi I'm ed Muzio CEO of harmonics I'm
going to tell you about brainstorming
done right we hear the word
brainstorming used around the workplace
a lot and usually now we just use it to
mean everyone share your idea but
everyone can share their ideas by email
the idea of real brainstorming is we
have a group of people like this group
here the whole is greater than the sum
of the parts
in other words they can do more together
than they could do alone the way
brainstorming is supposed to work is
that we get this group together this
person shares an idea he has maybe with
these people
maybe she hears that idea gives her
another idea gives this person another
idea they all start talking back and
forth about their different ideas and
eventually this person hears all that
and it inspires this person to have an
idea that nobody else had in a sense
it's this person's idea but in a sense
this great idea came from everything
that came before it
that's real brainstorming now if you
want to do your brainstorming right and
get ideas you wouldn't otherwise get
there are some simple do's and dont's
that you need to follow the first do
four good brainstorming is you do want
to capture everything and I mean
everything you want to start a flipchart
or maybe a whiteboard and you want to
write down everything anyone says no
matter how crazy it sounds you may be
inclined to skip some things but you
don't want to do that you want to get
everything on the board what you don't
want to do is you don't want to evaluate
anything you don't want to say that'll
never work that's too expensive and not
write it down this may not be a useful
idea but it may inspire the next useful
idea so you want it up now the next
thing you want to do in good
brainstorming is you want to encourage
participation it's perfectly valid to
turn to someone and say Frank I haven't
heard from you in a while do you have
any new ideas maybe Frank has something
he's been thinking about on the other
hand what you don't want to do is you
never want to force participation or
participation sequence if you're just
going to make everyone go around the
table and say what they think you've
lost the organic nature of the process
and you're back to using email don't
force it the third thing you want to do
in proper brainstorming is you want to
allow people to ask clarifying questions
let's say for example that you said your
idea was to change the business process
I might ask you do you mean the counting
biz
process or do you mean the customer
service business process that's a
clarifying question I'm trying to
understand what your idea really is what
we never want to do and we never want to
allow anyone to ask judging questions it
wouldn't be appropriate for me to say to
you how could you possibly think that
would work
that's a judging question it's really a
secret way of just evaluating and it's
too soon in the process for evaluating
now once you've gotten through that part
of the process once you've got your full
list and everyone's best ideas are out
then you can start to evaluate actually
you're going to do three things first
you're going to categorize you're going
to find like items and you're going to
group them together so you can reduce
the number of things you have to study
then you're going to reduce you're going
to go through and find the things that
just won't work you know they're not
feasible and you're going to take them
off the list and then finally you're
going to analyze you're going to look at
what's left figure out which are the
best ideas and bring them forward
hopefully for implementation so the next
time you have a group of people and you
need a great idea do your brainstorming
right capture everything everyone says
encourage participation and make sure
you allow clarifying questions but don't
evaluate anything too soon in the
process don't force people to
participate or their order and don't ask
judging questions once you've got your
list together then you can categorize
reduce and analyze what you have and
hopefully what you'll find there will
include your next great idea
you
![Group Brainstorming Techniques [Types of Brainstorming that Work]](https://img.youtube.com/vi/FkvCBUvH6Zc/mqdefault.jpg)
