Brainstorming has had a bad press recently. It seems that many have had poor experience of it.
My own belief is that this is mainly because people dive in with very limited skills, not understanding that training and experience enhance the value and effectiveness of the process greatly. I would say that untrained groups led by poor quality creative facilitation are almost invariably doomed to fail.
The term was first popularised in the 1940s by an American advertising executive, Alex Osborn, in his book, Applied Imagination. The four core principles involved in Osborn’s method are as valid today as they were then:
Focus on quantity: get a wide range of possibilities as start-ideas.
Withhold criticism: instead of identifying flaws in ideas offered, switch to “What does that make me think of?” and offer a new idea.
Welcome unusual ideas: not just the obvious ones.
Combine and improve ideas: take the most interesting parts of several start-ideas to create new ones.
Osborn’s method was extended and enhanced by George Prince and WJJ Gordon, who each wrote seminal books and together started the innovation and creativity consultancy, Synectics, whose method I still use.
On reflection, it seems to me that unless you are prepared to get a proper skill-base on board, it’s probably best to leave it alone.
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