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Why Brainstorming?
The best-known and widely used
team-based
creative problem solving
and
creative thinking technique is brainstorming. One major reason why
brainstorming is useful is that it helps to free us from 'fixed ideas'.
Problem
Solving Strategies: 4 Levels
Understanding Right /
Left Brain Functions
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The right side of the
brain
controls your creative, visual, spatial concepts.
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The left side of the brain controls your
logical, mathematical judgmental, analytical activities...
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As evaluation and judgment get in the way
of
creativity,
divide your time between these two types of activity. In a brainstorming
session, suspend judgment – your left brain activity – while you're
coming up with ideas by using your right brain. So, create, create,
create. Then switch over and evaluate, evaluate, evaluate, to arrive at
the best conclusion.
The 10 Key Project Leader
Skills
Diversion
and Conversion of Ideas
The process of innovation is a rhythm of
search and selection,
analysis and
synthesis, cycles of divergent thinking followed by convergence...
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Managing
the Flow of Ideas
The ideas you want to develop
during brainstorming session should flow from the strategies you
identify to achieve the objectives.3 The clearer your
objective is, the better you will be able to devise strategies to
achieve it.
The objective is what you want to achieve.
Start all objective statements in the infinitive, and make them
measurable, e.g. "to generate at least 20 ideas that could help us to
solve the problem" (not "to solve the problem").
The strategy is how you propose to achieve
the objective. Start all strategy statements with an active verb, e.g.
"invite proposals" or "hold a brainstorming session".
Turning Problems Into Opportunities Tips
Idea Selection and
Evaluation
At the end of the idea generation phase of the
brainstorming session or ideas campaign, you should choose the ideas you wish to
take further. A good brainstorming session can generate a lot of ideas. If you
have no means of determining which ideas will best meet your needs, it is all
too easy to become overwhelmed by ideas and select none of them, or to choose to
implement one of the most obvious but least effective ideas...
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Case in Point
IDEO
Brainstorming is practically a religion at IDEO,
one they practice nearly every day. "Though brainstorms themselves are often
playful, brainstorming as a tool – as a skill – is taken quite
seriously."4 In a company without many rules, IDEO people have a
very firm idea about what constitutes a brainstorm and how it should be
organized...
More
6 Barriers To Creative Thinking and
Innovation...
Looking at the Extremes
of Practicality...
Step Out of Your
Shoes...
Managing
Innovation by Cross-functional Teams...
Managing Creativity...
Loose-Tight Leadership...
Managing
Collective
Tacit and Explicit Knowledge...
Individual Brainstorm...
Idea
Evaluation: Changing perceptual Positions...
Case in Point
BIG
Project: IT-powered Brainstorming Sessions...
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