Does brainstorming really yield good ideas?
Over at Lateral Action, Mark McGuinness wrote a great piece that looked at the pros and cons of brainstorming. I thought I’d weigh in with my thoughts on the topic.
Just in case you’re not 100% certain of what brainstorming is, here’s the introduction to the brainstorming entry at Wikipedia.org:
Brainstorming is a group creativity technique designed to generate a large number of ideas for the solution of a problem. The method was first popularized in the late 1930s by Alex Faickney Osborn in a book called Applied Imagination. Osborn proposed that groups could double their creative output with brainstorming.
Although brainstorming has become a popular group technique, researchers have not found evidence of its effectiveness for enhancing either quantity or quality of ideas generated. Because of such problems as distraction, social loafing, evaluation apprehension, and production blocking, brainstorming groups are little more effective than other types of groups, and they are actually less effective than individuals working independently. In the Encyclopedia of Creativity, Tudor Rickards, in his entry on brainstorming, summarizes its controversies and indicates the dangers of conflating productivity in group work with quantity of ideas.
Although traditional brainstorming does not increase the productivity of groups, it may still provide benefits, such as boosting morale, enhancing work enjoyment, and improving team work. Thus, numerous attempts have been made to improve brainstorming or use more effective variations of the basic technique.
The Wikipedia entry seems a bit negative, doesn’t it?
The Lateral Action piece attempts to look at arguments both for and against the brainstorming concept. There’s also some great thoughts in the comments for Mark’s blog post.
I’ve worked in a medium to large sized corporation for over 17 years and I’ve seen brainstorming used on a few different occasions. I’ve even attempted to use it in some of my own meetings although I’ve never been trained on brainstorming techniques.
Brainstorming is certainly good for generating a large quantity of ideas once people become comfortable enough to “fire at will”, so to speak. Don’t hold back your ideas, don’t judge them, and don’t stop to think whether they are good or bad, but do set a time limit for the barrage of thoughts to fire away.
What’s interesting, though, at least in my own experience, was that we rarely got any good or useful ideas beyond the original spurt of thinking: not from using something resembling the formal brainstorming technique in a group of six or more people. I can’t say that my experience was typical, but that’s what I seem to remember.
The important thing, I think, is the evaluation, questioning, and culling process that’s used to take a raw list of ideas and refine it to something better and useful. Unless that’s done effectively, your awesome ideas are basically worthless.
As far as group idea generation, there are certainly times when this can yield good ideas, but the politics and norms that inevitably appear in large groups tend to prevent them from being as effective as they could be. Small groups can be very effective: they are classic vehicles for collaboration. Just ask the Beatles.
Here’s another thing to consider: self-brainstorming. By that, I mean quickly running generating a bunch of ideas and then evaluating them later. This can also be effective, but it’s probably a good idea to wait at least one day between generating ideas and evaluating/critiquing the same ideas.
Maybe there’s a better way to do brainstorming. The key thing that you’re trying to do in brainstorming is to tap into the knowledge and creativity of a large and hopefully diverse group of individuals who can all bring unique perspectives to a problem. Brainstorming is supposed to provide a way to tap into all of that brainpower; however, some people just don’t do well in group settings. Maybe something like the Delphi method, where people make anonymous contributions in an attempt to maintain objectivity, might be a better method.
Maybe it’s time to take Web 2.0 technologies and really try to take brainstorming to the next level by finding ways to improve group idea generation by filtering out social and psychological barriers.
How about you? What do you think?
Note: Paul Williams had a great post at MarketingProfs called Take Your Brainstorming from Good to Wicked-Good with a very logical, and effective, idea tacked onto the end of the brainstorming process – it’s definitely worth reading.
Erin Bury:
I agree that although brainstorming can give you a great list of raw ideas, people rarely drill down and find the ideas that are plausible, and follow through and execute them. So although you might have sheets and sheets of paper with ideas scrawled on the them, they become useless if they just sit at someone's desk and collect dust. Brainstorming can just be a way for team members to get together and talk, since so often people are consumed by their own work. And if the company is divided into small teams, it can help to get some outside perspective.
27 January 2009, 9:05 amMark Dykeman:
Yes, excellent thoughts, Erin, especially the “just talking” part.
27 January 2009, 11:24 amScott M.:
I have always found BRIEF daily meetings to be more beneficial than half-day or day-long brainstorming. Of course, I guess it depends on who is in the meeting.
Generally I prefer to avoid meetings altogether if I can.
27 January 2009, 1:27 pmMark Dykeman:
Yeah, I hear you. Brief is the new brief and productive.
27 January 2009, 7:39 pmGregg Fraley:
I dispute the Wikipedia blurb entirely. Academic researchers have indeed found evidence that brainstorming, if done by trained people, works. Read Puccio, Firestein et all for the hard evidence.
Idea generation techniques have evolved way beyond the brainstorming sessions that folks experienced a few years ago; clearly though the new tools and techniques are not yet widespread and many organizations still do crap brainstorming. As a facilitator of brainstorming what I find is that organizations that don't do it frequently, don't do it well. And if you practice breaking all the rules along the way, it's crap practice and it won't improve your results.
Long format sessions can work, but they require that a lot of work be done before people get to the room (or virtual session). The biggest mistakes people make is to brainstorm without doing research first, without framing the challenge carefully, and without allowing time for incubation. If you don't do those things you will indeed have poor results, but don't blame it on the technique, blame it on how the technique is executed.
28 January 2009, 6:20 amMark Dykeman:
Thanks for adding your thoughts, Gregg. I figured that your experience would add a needed perspective.
28 January 2009, 6:56 amPamela Weir:
I really enjoy brainstorming sessions. Not because they yield feasible results, but because they give people the opportunity to evaluate and discuss alternate ideas about the company or its products. It's a great way to get employees to practice opening their minds to non-traditional alternatives. You never know where a good idea could be hiding.
The biggest problem I found with brainstorming sessions, was the lack of an actionable plan once all the “new” ideas were put on the table, but I think that's the problem with most company meetings. Everyone leaves the table not really know what is expected of them, or who they should rely on to get things moving. They know the goal, have several paths to reaching it, but they have no focus and no expectations.
It's great to get new ideas, but I think the real focus should be on what to do with the results of group or self brainstorming session. What is really lacking is structure in brainstorming meetings.
So, instead of leading a brainstorming session with “we need some ideas to get more customers” and scribbling everything on a sheet of lined paper never to be seen again, maybe putting some more definition around the expectations, resources and deadlines would help to identify ideas that can truly work to reach your company goals.
29 January 2009, 12:13 pmMark Dykeman:
Yes, great points there.
29 January 2009, 4:56 pmHutch Carpenter:
Mark – Finally reading your article here on brainstorming, which I should have read before I wrote my own brainstorming piece! You hit on a couple of things that I think are important. First, your notion about individuals brainstorming is spot on. This study by INSEAD and UPenn researchers (http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract...) found that the quantity and average quality of ideas yielded from brainstorming was higher when individuals came up with their own ideas..
The other finding is that individuals are better at evaluating ideas, than are groups. Groups do suffer from idea ownership biases and other political influences. But individuals were better at avoiding those issues when they evaluated ideas. This is where Web 2.0 technologies, things like prediction markets, have an advantage.
4 February 2009, 9:17 amMark Dykeman:
Better late than never…
5 February 2009, 1:24 pmCreative Thinking or Lateral Thinking? | Eric D. Brown - Technology, Strategy, People & Projects:
[...] Does brainstorming really yield good ideas? (broadcasting-brain.com) [...]
24 March 2009, 10:45 pmPassingBy:
From the Wikipedia entry referenced…
“Brainstorming is a group creativity technique designed to generate a large number of ideas for the solution of a problem.”
and later…
“…researchers have not found evidence of its effectiveness for enhancing either quantity or quality of ideas generated.”
Perhaps a better measure of the brainstorming technique is to measure the probability of finding the solution at the inception of the process, when it's assumed to be most advantageous to do so.
“The important thing, I think, is the evaluation, questioning, and culling process that’s used to take a raw list of ideas and refine it to something better and useful. Unless that’s done effectively, your awesome ideas are basically worthless.”
Great Post!
Great post!
21 December 2009, 10:29 pm