Creatively Lightning the Thunder of Storming Brains
Creatively Lightning the Thunder of Storming Brains
Whenever the topic of creativity in business is brandished around a boardroom or other interesting place, brainstorming leaps to mind like a greased cheetah in a condom factory. The recipe is simple. Take a mixed bag of approximately one dozen individuals - by mixed I mean not exactly the same - and lock them in a room that is conducive to thinking. Such a room should make them relaxed, but ideally not unconscious.
Humour is not only a wildly effective creative tool to paraphrase Dr Edward De Bono, it is also a wildly effective creative tool to ensure that brain-stormers are relaxed but not unconscious. In the heady throes of friendly fun-poking and frolicking along the outskirts of sanity, strange and wonderful things can happen, and often do. For example, innovative ideas have been observed by astrologers to bubble up from the primordial ooze.
To ensure that all brains are well and truly stormed, the session should be facilitated by a facilitator - and by facilitator I mean not some power-drunk official armed with nothing more than a personal agenda. The facilitator, if he or she is worth his or her salt or pepper, should be armed with post-it notes, a flip chart, spray glue, other standard facilitation paraphernalia, and trousers. He or she will also, ideally, not be drunk.
The goodness of cross-functional, diverse, and otherwise diverse and very diverse individuals cannot be underestimated or over stated. I am not suggesting that you try to cram experts from four billion different disciplines into one room, but an inter-disciplinary approach is lovely, and so is a variety of different disciplines. Non-experts can often provide valuable out-of-body experiences for specialists, and that can only be a good thing.
Before the storming of brains, be sure that the challenge to be attacked is as clear as something which is very clear, or clearer if possible, as clarity is a very effective tool for clarifying things. You should also clearly state the purpose and objective of the brainstorming session, and ideally these should be the same. Also, make very sure that the participants have had some time to think about the problem before storming their brains in a merciless and uncharacteristically lovely way. Send them a memo, a text reminder, an email, a skype call, and a verbally-actualized conversational conversation around the coffee cooler. But don't do this all at once. And don't forget the clarity.
Traditionally the participants shout out their ideas in a loud, raucous, and haphazard way, and the poor facilitator - that means you - does his (or her) nut trying to write it all down without dropping dead from exhaustion. The participants are forewarned that pre-starved fire-ants will be introduced into their underpants if they pass judgement, do not build on the ideas of others, do not focus on quantity rather than quality, and do not offer ideas which are wild and outrageous. Ideas which initially seem idiotic, obtuse, and very idiotic, are very often with the wisdom of 20-20 hindsight, found to be only idiotic. But don't let that stop you - starving fire-ants are an excellent incentive.
Kick off the brainstorming session with a wildly original and hey-wow activity like: "List thirteen billion uses for a used marshmallow." Encourage the participants to overcome their shyness and fears of failure, rejection, or looking just plain stupid by hitting them with a long piece of velcro - just kidding, a mop would probably work better. On a more serious note - and by note I mean something other than A-flat-major, as references to mutilated military officials are either cruel or gratuitously silly. You could do worse than to encourage your participants to relax, put their feet up (metaphorically speaking), and feel free to offer outrageous, ridiculous, and even obscene suggestions.
The general objective is for people to feel free of social inhibitions while not removing all their clothes - otherwise where would you put the fire-ants? Brainstorm in 5 to 15 minute sessions with short intervals to refresh and focus participants' brains and other relevant body parts like bladders, livers, and spleens. OK, perhaps not spleens. A focused spleen is like a fish without a banana.
For those who spit on the weather-worn sandals of convention, and wish to avoid the pitfalls of traditional brainstorming, which include waiting for the facilitator to finish translating from English into Flipchartese, the tendency for the more confident participants to hog airtime for their favourite subjects by squashing their less vocal counterparts like testicles in a vice grip, and the throbbing headaches, croaky throats, and exploding eardrums caused by all that shouting, here is a handy alternative:
Ask participants to write their ideas concisely and clearly on cards or post-it notes and to stick these up on a large surface such as a wall, or something closely approximating a wall.
Subtly mention that clustering their idea contributions with other contributions which appear thematically similar is a good thing, and will appease the great fire-ant god.
Then allow the participants to roam freely among the contributions, while browsing for ideas or combinations of ideas that stimulate them to produce.yet more ideas by combining or building on the ideas they find. If this appears unclear, you haven't been paying attention - so treat yourself to a generous dollop of fire-ants.
Repeat steps 1 to 3 until the silent fury of idea-generation dies down, or until you run out of time, money, fire-ants, or marshmallows. Then divide the participants into small groups of three to six, and ask the groups to identify the emerging themes. Go home tired, but happy, and release all remaining fire-ants into the wild. By wild I mean the underpants of your least favourite neighbour.
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