“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!

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.

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.

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.