Brainstorming ... Fast & Fun

How many times have you come out of a brainstorming session feeling unsatisfied with the results?  The team never felt like it got into a rhythm.  The idea flow felt like a drizzle versus a storm.  None of the ideas that the team spent much time on seemed especially good (BTW, you should never spend a lot of time on any one idea in a brainstorming session).  There was one or two people that insisted on dominating the conversation and ended up speaking way too much.  This to the frustration of the rest of the group.  The good news is that there are just a handful of things you need to do to run a productive and fun brainstorming session.  

The overall goal of any brainstorming is to generate a high quantity of ideas.  This is really important ... it's all about quantity, NOT quality.  You will have plenty of opportunity after brainstorming to evaluate the quality of the ideas generated and select a winner. 

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Developing an "Eye for Innovation"

Some people have a great eye for photography.  Through years of practice, they develop an instinct or reflex that recognizes when an awesome photographic moment presents itself.  It could be the lighting, composition, colors, people, their facial expressions, and a host of other qualities in a scene that will make a good photographer take notice.  And long before you can explain what it is that he sees, he already has his camera out and has taken a few snap shots.

Now the question is, can you develop a similar "eye for innovation"?  I believe the answer is yes.

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Uncork Your Brain with Mind Maps

That great idea you are looking for is already somewhere in your mind or in the collective mind of your team.  The real effort in coming up with a great idea, is all about getting out of your own way so that your great idea can reveal itself.  I want to refer to this as the “idea release” process, rather than the idea generation process.

A very useful tool in the idea release process is mind mapping.  In this post, I will discuss how we inadvertently trap our great ideas in our mind; strategies for getting out of our own way; and finally how mind maps can help.

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