2012 will almost certainly be “The Year of Ideas.”

With a major national election on the horizon, cataclysmic changes in business, finance, society, culture—in both the online and offline arenas, big ideas will be in great demand.

The truth is, we live in a world of continuous change, where the “status quo” is, in fact, a state of flux. Organizations and individuals must continuously reinvent themselves in order to remain relevant.

Even your Facebook page format changes on a regular basis!

If you and your team are going to be masterful innovators, you are going to have to make use of the most widely practiced technique for idea generation—group brainstorming. The problem is, the vast majority of brainstorms are random, haphazard, poorly planned and ineffectively facilitated. And the results are usually just as disappointing.

Here are a dozen simple tips to help you squeeze maximum effectiveness from every brainstorm session—and experience the kinds of results that will keep you and your group at the top of your game.

1. Plan Ahead – Take some time to plan your brainstorms before you walk into the room. Nothing can have a greater impact on brainstorm success than simply considering what will actually happen during the session. How will you set up your challenge? What types of techniques will you use to engage your participants and keep energy high? How will you manage any potential conflicts? By planning ahead, you free yourself to be a masterful leader during the session… rather than the person at the head of the table frantically trying to make things work.
2. Invite Diversity – Tired of hearing the same old ideas? Then stop inviting the same old group to your brainstorms! Invite a stranger, or two. Seek out new and different participants who can bring a different, often surprising perspective to your challenge. And don’t worry if they aren’t experts in your topic. You have plenty of those already. Welcome the unexpected… and see how the quality and freshness of your ideas skyrockets!
3. Change the Scenery – Just as diversity in participants can stimulate new thinking, so can meeting in different locations. The same, familiar conference room or office can, over time, become mind-numbing. Move your team into a new space in 2012. How about outdoors? In a museum? At the mall? Use your imagination… and your team will find it easier to use theirs!
4. Go Crazy! – “Playing it safe” is no longer safe. In pretty much every industry and organizational environment, people today are looking for things that are new, unexpected, different and even shocking. Inspire your team to go for more wild and edgy ideas in 2012. Encourage them to think outside their comfort zone. The results will be exhilarating.
5. Become a Two (or More) Trick Pony – How many idea generation techniques do you know and use? If you answered, “None,” then you are just like the vast majority of brainstorm facilitators. Make a point of familiarizing yourself with at least two new ideation techniques in 2012. Don’t know where to find them? Just type “brainstorming techniques” into your favorite search engine and see what pops up. There are dozens, if not hundreds of proven techniques for stimulating the mind to think in new and different ways. Try some! They work!
6. Get More Stimulation – Creative idea generation is an associative process. In other words, it happens when we make new connections to existing information and experiences. The more information and experiences we have to work with, the more (and more exciting) connections we can make! Make it a regular practice to seek out new sources of inspiration (stimuli) to stock your team’s creative pond. Provocative imagery, art, music, advertising – anything that interests or excites you. Encourage the team to do the same and share. The quality and quantity of your new ideas will improve dramatically.
7. Channel Your Inner Steve Jobs – What made Apple’s late founder and creative catalyst such a powerful visionary was his unwavering commitment to innovation. You can do the same. Simply decide that you will never accept “good enough.” Practice thinking forward rather than thinking practical (safe). Strive for solutions that are not only viable, but that set you and your team apart from the herd. In short, unleash your inner creative genius!
8. Question Everything - We all tend to think of ourselves as “know-it-alls,” and walk around every day with firm beliefs about what’s right and what’s wrong, or what is and is not possible. But true innovators continually question their own pre-conceived beliefs, and those of others. This is the basis of the most creative question you can ask: “What if?” This year try questioning more of your assumptions before generating ideas. What do you know to be true about the challenge? In what circumstances might it not be true? And if it’s not absolutely true, what are the possibilities? You just might be surprised at how much you didn’t really know all along!
9. Trust Yourself More – After you’ve challenged all those pre-existing beliefs, trust your intuition. Make a commitment to yourself and your team to stop self-editing. If you think it, say it. Then see where it goes. Sometimes the craziest and most embarrassing thought leads to a game changing idea. So give yourself permission to think the unthinkable and say the unspeakable.
10. Cover All the Angles – The world’s greatest thinkers are those who can attack a challenge from many different angles. This is yet another example of “What if?” Develop the habit of intentionally exploring different viewpoints or perspectives. How would our customer approach this problem? How would our competition? How would Einstein? How would someone from another planet? How can we do this simply? How can we do it inexpensively? How would we do it if we had all the money in the world? You will be amazed at how different a challenge looks and feels when you look at it from a different vantage point.
11. Kick Out the Boss! – You read right. With all due respect for the bosses out there, no one can kill a brainstorm faster or more effectively than you. It’s not necessarily your fault (although it may be!) But some people just aren’t comfortable expressing wild ideas in front of authority figures—especially those who sign the check. So figure out a way to minimize the boss’s intimidating impact on the group. If they insist on participating, respectfully ask them to join the session later, after the team has generated a first round of ideas. Or better yet, suggest that ideas be shared with them after the session. They can always have veto power. But it does no one any good if potentially great ideas are never shared in the first place.
12. Choose Wisely – Generating ideas is one thing. Selecting them is another altogether. Develop a sound, objective process for evaluating and choosing your best ideas. What criteria will define a winning solution? Where can you combine or eliminate ideas that are similar in their approach. Remember, a great brainstorm can generate a lot of ideas. Be prepared to manage the selection process as effectively as you do the idea generation phase.

Successful brainstorms do not happen by chance. They are planned and executed by individuals who put in the time and effort to ensure things run smoothly. Make a resolution to be a masterful brainstormer in 2012.

It just might be your most innovative year ever!

The vast majority of people who regularly lead or participate in brainstorms report that the results they achieve in their idea generation sessions are all-too-often, disappointing. A lack of fresh ideas, minimal participation, dominating personalities and inadequate follow-through are among the most common complaints.

This is the first in a series of articles that will provide a basic understanding of the key principles necessary for brainstorming success. By simply considering and applying these concepts, you and your team can experience much more productive and enjoyable brainstorms.

“He who every morning plans the transaction of the day and follows out that plan, carries a thread that will guide him through the maze of the most busy life. But where no plan is laid, where the disposal of time is surrendered merely to the chance of incidence, chaos will soon reign.“

- Victor Hugo

Unfortunately, most people have never experienced a genuinely successful brainstorm. The vast majority range from disappointing to disastrous. So when it comes to planning a brainstorm, you may not even know what to plan for.

If you want to create a much more efficient, productive and enjoyable brainstorming experience for yourself and your team, it is essential that you thoroughly pre-plan your sessions. This first step in our SmartStorming process is one that is almost never taken, and one of the most critical. In fact, taking this one step alone can have a dramatic impact on the success of your ideation sessions.

Experience design is a discipline in which processes or environments—experiences— are carefully crafted to meet the needs, desires, skills and expectations of the participants. Consider, for example, a roller coaster. The designer considers each moment of the experience, from the time the rider is strapped into the seat, through the first rise, the first big drop, every twist, turn and barrel roll, until the car rolls to a stop and the journey is over.

A group brainstorm session is much the same. As a successful leader, you must plan exactly where you want to take your participants, what their overall experience will be, how to keep your group on track and how it will all end up. Think of yourself as an experience designer, leave as little as possible to chance, and your sessions will consistently deliver the results you are looking for.

There are three key advantages in pre-planning your brainstorm sessions:

1. Pre-planning helps make your session flow more easily and productively from beginning to end. As the facilitator, you enter the room with a greater sense of confidence because you have comprehensively mapped out the precise journey of imagination your group is about to embark upon. You have clearly pre-determined the goals and objectives, invited the best team (knowledge and experience) to help you achieve your goals, you have pre-selected the best idea-generation tools and techniques for the challenge, and possess the right criteria necessary for efficiently evaluating and selecting ideas. When you pre-plan your sessions, you minimize the Machiavellian forces of chaos and entropy that can quickly undermine loosely structured traditional brainstorms.
2. Pre-planning dramatically increases your group’s creative yield of new ideas.There are numerous, proven group idea-generation tools and techniques that inspire fresh thinking and new ways to approach problem solving. These tools and techniques can be used individually, or combined in different combinations to eradicate limiting assumptions, explore multiple viewpoints and stimulate powerful free-association – what we call “popcorning” of ideas. Pre-planning provides you the valuable opportunity to orchestrate the best tools and techniques to ignite your group’s imagination and achieve your goal. It can dramatically increase your group’s creative yield, often by as much as 40-60%.
3. Pre-planning frees you up to lead more effectively. Once you have laid out your session plan, you will have a clear, concise overview of how your brainstorm will flow from beginning to end. This blueprint takes all the guesswork out of how to structure your session, or what to do, or when to do it. It’s all there… simply organized and in sequence. So as the group leader, you can focus on the matter at hand—generating ideas.

The 7 Pre-Planning Steps
Our SmartStorming Pre-Session Planner makes pre-planning easy. It walks the leader through the seven easy-to-follow steps necessary to structure great sessions, time after time. The steps are simple and logical. They are designed to stimulate your best thinking and get you highly organized, regardless of how challenged you may be in the organizational department.

Pre-planning requires an investment of just a few minutes of quality time, but guarantees your SmartStorm session will flow more efficiently, more enjoyably, and produce far superior results than traditional brainstorming efforts.

Here is a brief overview of each step we take in the SmartStorming Pre-Session Planner. You’ll soon see why this simple step will change forever the way you approach group ideation meetings.

Step 1: Clarify the Challenge, Goals and Objectives
It’s very difficult to get where you want to go if you don’t know where you’re going. That’s why goals and objectives are so vitally important. Clarifying your specific challenge, goals and objectives focuses the group’s attention and sets a high creative bar.

Step 2: Choose Participants
You can dramatically increase the quantity and quality of the ideas your group produces by thoughtfully selecting your participants. Choosing individuals with the most appropriate backgrounds, skills, knowledge, and experience for the challenge, instead of simply inviting the “usual suspects,” is a critically important step in group ideation success.

Step 3: Provide Background Information
In a typical, poorly-planned brainstorm session, participants enter the room with only a vague notion of the task at hand. They may know the general subject, but typically don’t understand the specifics of the challenge. Getting them “up to speed” can often take 20% or more of your allotted time. Provide your group with all the information they need to succeed—before the session takes place.

Step 4: Choose Your Icebreaker
When participants enter the room, chances are they are coming in with scattered attention, preoccupied with other outside concerns. The first job of a good facilitator is to help focus the group on the challenge ahead, free up their attention from distractions, breakdown interpersonal barriers and galvanize them as a collaborative team aligned toward a common goal. The fastest way to accomplish this is through brief, playful icebreaker activities.

Step 5: Select Ideation Techniques
While every part of a SmartStorming session is important, arguably the most important is the time allotted for actual idea generation. Simply “throwing ideas against the wall” is hardly the most effective way to help groups generate abundant, innovative concepts. There are dozens of techniques for enhancing the flow of original thoughts, helping teams expand and enhance the ideas of others and create totally new directions by combining or exploring various aspects of ideas. Decide ahead of time which tools and techniques will be most appropriate for your challenge and your group, in order to ensure outstanding results.

Step 6: Establish Selection Criteria
A productive SmartStorming session can produce literally hundreds of new ideas. Some are great. Some have potential. Some are…well, you know. How you organize, evaluate, and select the best ideas can become a daunting challenge, particularly in the heat of the moment, and if you haven’t considered your process ahead of time. Your selection criteria should be built directly from your challenge, goals and objectives, established in Step One. By pre-determining the specific yardstick you will use to measure the effectiveness of potential ideas, you will have a clear, unambiguous process in place, ready to implement.

Step 7: Plan Next Steps and Follow-Through
Most people believe a brainstorming session ends when the ideas have been selected. In fact, the end of the idea selection process actually launches an entirely new process—follow-through. Once again, most people never even consider this to be part of an effective ideation session. But breakthrough ideas are useless unless they are transformed from ethereal concepts into tangible realities. To bring new ideas to life, next steps and timetables need to be determined, responsibilities assigned, milestones established and progress meetings scheduled.

That’s it. Once you have completed your pre-session planning, you are all set! You will feel organized, buttoned-down and more confident in your abilities to lead a great session. Your group will appreciate the difference the new structure and techniques will make in liberating their creativity to more effortlessly achieve success.

Click here to download a free copy of our SmartStorming Pre-session Planner – and start pre-planning perfect brainstorms today!

Video of our successful webinar, “7 Secrets for Supercharging Your Brainstorms,” held on Tuesday, September 14, 2010.

7 Secrets for Supercharging Your Brainstorms

1.Preplan your sessions to boost yield of ideas

2.Get your group off to a fast start

3.Proactively manage and balance personalities

4.Engage the silent thinkers

5.Keep the energy high and ideas flowing

6.Use proven idea-generation techniques (like Idea Sprinting)

7.Never select ideas without pre-determined criteria

To learn more about how to supercharge your brainstorms, REGISTER HERE to receive a free copy of the SmartStorming 7-Step Pre-Session Planner, including instructions for the powerful Idea Sprinting ideation technique.

© 2010 SmartStorming LLC – All rights reserved

Group brainstorming, as we know it today, has been around since the 1930s. For the most part, it hasn’t changed all that much in the past seventy-plus years, except in one respect: the development of new ideation techniques.

Ideation techniques are, quite simply, novel thought-provoking exercises designed to help groups tackle challenges in ways they might not otherwise consider. Some make it easier for groups to view issues from fresh perspectives; others provide engaging processes to help stimulate imagination, overcome shyness, facilitate collaboration, and much more.

In short, ideation techniques make it possible for groups to generate a greater breadth and depth of ideas (i.e., more, better ideas).

Anyone who takes even a few moments to Google “ideation techniques” will learn that there are dozens, perhaps hundreds, around. Some are well-known and extensively documented; others are less-so.

We recently conducted a survey among our network to find out just where people stand on ideation techniques—which ones they know, which ones they use in brainstorms, and what they think about them. The results are interesting, if not completely surprising.

When asked whether they believe knowing and using different ideation techniques is beneficial to brainstorming, the answer was a resounding “Yes!”

“…it helps you see more possibilities and solutions”

“…otherwise all people do it sit in a room and go around in circles discussing the same old issues & thoughts without any focus or direction.”

“It directs and channels your thinking.”

“… solutions can arise unconventionally, where otherwise no solutions may have surfaced creatively.”

Many respondents also suggested that knowing and understanding a variety of techniques is critical to group brainstorming success (a notion we at SmartStorming wholeheartedly agree with).

“The more techniques you can use the more chance you have of getting better results from a group.”

“…You have to match the technique to the objective and the strengths/weaknesses of the group.”

“…the more tools you bring to the stage, the more likely you are to come up with a hit.”

“…if you use only one brainstorming technique, you’ll lose the crispness of creativity.”

However, when provided a list of well-known ideation techniques, only one had relatively broad awareness—Mind Mapping—followed by Edward de Bono’s Six Thinking Hats and the widely-used S.W.O.T. Analysis. All others listed had less than 7% awareness.

Mind Mapping – 23%
S.W.O.T. Analysis – 20%
Six Thinking Hats – 19%
180-Degree Thinking/Reversal – 8%
SCAMPER – 7%
Worst Idea – 6%
In Their Shoes – 6%
All others – <3%

And when asked what other techniques (not listed in the survey) they used, more than 54% of listed no additional techniques at all; and fewer than 10% listed more than two.

It is important to note that this survey was conducted among our network of readers, presumably an audience that is more tuned-in to advanced brainstorming and ideation techniques than the average businessperson. And yet, it is clear that even among this group, very few know, understand and use a range of ideation techniques.

Again, this result isn’t entirely surprising. In our own ongoing research, we find that fewer than 10% of individuals in any industry (even creativity-focused businesses like advertising and design) have had any training whatsoever in brainstorming and group ideation. Those that have typically know one or two ideation techniques, but nothing about brainstorming session structure or facilitation skills.

And so it would appear that while we understand and acknowledge the value of having a library of ideation techniques at our disposal, few of us make the effort to identify and learn those techniques.

In this era of the “innovation economy,” it is bewildering that individuals and organizations still don’t recognize the importance of idea generation. Business success today requires continuous reevaluation and reinvention of one’s business offering. Once organizations could thrive for decades on a single great idea; today they need a great idea every year, and in some cases every month or week.

Only by taking the personal initiative to educate oneself in a variety of ideation techniques—and to offer training throughout one’s organization in effective brainstorm leadership and facilitation—can anyone hope to survive and thrive in today’s competitive business environment.

Innovation begins with ideas. No ideas, no innovation.

How many great ideas did you and your team come up with today?

——————-

Note: Here’s a full list of all ideation techniques mentioned by survey respondents. They’re a good start for building your own library!

Mind Mapping
S.W.O.T. Analysis
Six Thinking Hats
180-Degree Thinking/Reversal
SCAMPER
Worst Idea
In Their Shoes
3-D Ideation (SmartStorming)
Brainwalking
Group Graffitti
Freewriting
Divergent/Convergent Thinking
Process & Task Orientation
Role Reversal (similar to “In Their Shoes”)
Working Backwards
Analografiti by Vera F. Birkenbihl
Subconscious Ideation
Delphi Method
Synetics
Zero Draft
Rapid Writing
Random Input/Analogy
Alter Ego
What If?
Parallel Design
How Might Be?
Facilitated Creative Visualization
Socratic Questioning
Kills the Sacred Cows (similar to 180-Degree Thinking)
Random Stimulation
Forced Connection
Ask a Stranger

And here is webpage with a fairly extensive listing of techniques you can explore and use: http://www.mycoted.com/Category:Creativity_Techniques

How to Get Your Group Thinking On Its Feet

Group Graffiti is a physical, highly interactive idea generation technique that gets participants out of their seats and thinking on their feet. As its name implies, Group Graffiti is a writing and/or drawing exercise done with large sheets of paper taped to a wall. A problem statement is posted above and participants (armed with large, thick markers) are instructed to stroll back and forth along the wall spontaneously “tagging” it with ideas. Participants are also encouraged to build on the ideas of others.

Wild, audacious thinking is encouraged. The goal is to fill the wall with as many ideas and drawings as possible before the time deadline expires.

How to facilitate Group Graffiti:

1. Post 6-12 large, self-sticking sheets from a Post-it® Easel Pad (or a section of brown butcher paper) on a long, smooth, uncluttered wall surface. Also provide large markers to all participants.
2. Post the problem statement prominently on the wall.
3. Set a timer for 15-20 minutes. Instruct your participants to go to wall with their markers, and walk around randomly writing down or sketching ideas on the wall.
4. Encourage your group to spontaneously build on and evolve each other’s ideas — or jot down new ones. Anything goes in Group Graffiti.
5. When time has expired. Lead your group through the selection process by asking them to help identify the best ideas (based on your selection criteria) from the wall and read them out loud.
6. Once the best ideas have been selected, ask your group to look for ways to improve or build on the them to make the even better.

Wisdom of the Crowd Option
Creative ideas can come from anyone at any time, even from people not directly involved in your problem/solution process. To harvest the wisdom of the crowd, try posting large sheets of paper with the problem statement written boldly at the top in a public space or hallway. Just watch as individuals walking stop and add their ideas.

Is it really possible to turn a really bad idea into a really great one? Absolutely.

The Worst Idea technique is not only one of the most popular with brainstorm groups, it’s extremely effective. As you might suspect from the name, the facilitator asks participants to come up with the worst possible idea they can think of. Nothing is “too bad” – distasteful, rude, crass, embarrassing, off-color. The worse, the better.

How about a car that automatically runs over pedestrians who cross against the signal? A new diet pasta that is mixed with worms and human hair, to get dieters to eat less? A new recycled product that’s good for the environment – like previously used toilet tissue? How much worse could you get? Keep trying.

What’s the point of such an exercise?

First, it “loosens up” the group. We have been taught to reject bad ideas, and therefore won’t allow ourselves to go there. By encouraging people to think outlandish thoughts, the creative process is jump-started.

Second, many bad ideas contain some provocative element, something powerful and compelling. By making a simple change, you can often turn a bad idea into a great one. A car that runs over slow pedestrians might not be practical – but one that senses pedestrians ahead and automatically brakes might be. A diet pasta mixed with worms and hair might not be such a palatable notion – but one fortified with extra protein and fiber might be.

The Worst Idea can be a lot of fun. Give it a try next time your brainstorming. Be gross, outrageous, cynical. You just might come up with your BEST worst idea ever.

You may already be familiar with Mind Mapping, an idea generation tool defined by Wikipedia as “…a diagram used to represent words, ideas, tasks, or other items linked to and arranged around a central key word or idea. Mind maps are used to generate, visualize, structure, and classify ideas, and as an aid in study, organization, problem solving, decision making, and writing.” Mind Maps of some sort or another have been around a long time; however, author Tony Buzan is credited with developing the well-known, modern approach.

Mind Mapping is an excellent group ideation technique, one of many we teach in our SmartStorming training. Specifically, it can help groups (and individuals, by the way) build directly and tangentially off of a given thought. The initial idea quickly leads to expanded concepts, or in totally new directions which can then be expanded themselves.

Obviously Mind Maps can be created by hand. But there are also quite a few software applications for Mind Mapping, which can also be used very successfully in a SmartStorming session. One very simple one is FreeMind, which is, in fact, FREE. You can download the software for both Windows and Mac here: http://freemind.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Download. (Note: the program is Java-based. We have no association with the developers and make no claims as to the quality or value of the software.)

Here’s a brief video demo of the software.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBHEg8nQsNI]