Brainstorming debate
Apparently, this blogger is not liking brainstorming very much these days. I weigh in toward the end of the thread.
Posting in his house for the first time I tried to be respectful but I don’t think the poster understands what brainstorming is. It is not an open discussion, it is not a free for all. It is a rigorously controlled, focused idea generating session that lives and dies on four simple rules:
1. Anything goes. Free your mind and come up with as many wild ideas as you can.
2. Proliferate ideas. Generate a vast quantity of ideas, don’t concern yourself if they are good or bad or insane or whatever.
3. Suspend judgement. Don’t judge your own ideas or anyone else’s. Ideas will be evaluated later.
4. Piggyback on one other’s ideas. If you see something that you can connect to an idea of your own, integrate them. Build on one another’s creative energy.
The facilitator must rule with an iron hand. If he senses judgement or lack of freewheeling, he’s got to do something about it, even if it’s his boss that’s the culprit. That’s why it takes training.
EDIT: It’s also the facilitators job to challenge the group to change their perspective, challenge assumptions, and make novel connections. It is through these processes that the truly novel ideas are generated. The first round of brainstorming is a ‘brain dump’ where everyone lets the same old ideas fly. Then the connections start to form and piggybacking occurs. The facilitator eventually has to switch gears into the more abstract tools to generate novelty. Concepts are fuzzy, perspectives shift, and often idea insanity ensues. But that’s how the revolutionary ideas come about.
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