How To Brainstorm And Create Innovative Ideas

Whatever kind of organisation or company you work for there's always a need for ideas. Someone calls a meeting where you're supposed to have a workshop or brainstorm in order to generate new ideas. However, most of those meetings tend to be ineffective as the manager calling the meeting often doesn't have a process prepared when it comes to work out those new ideas. That's why I thought I'd provide you with some of my tools.What are we trying to solveBefore the meeting startsProblem definitionWhen the meeting startsToolsPostIt, Pencils, Toys, Clay, Whiteboards or even better, huge cardboards that you can keep untouched until the next meetingAnnounce the rulesBefore. During. After.Do and don't

Release your minds

People come to meetings prepared in their mind. They often know what the meeting is all about and they've got ideas how to solve the problem. This is not good. If you wanna have a succesful brainstorm you should always aim to make people think of something else before you actually start creating. I use different techniques for this but I wanna share the best one - diversion. It's simple. Once people have gathered in the room - have people do something they weren't prepared to do. For example, ask everyone around the table to review the best book they've ever read, the best movie, their favorite summer vacation spot etc. This will take about 5-10 minutes of the meeting but it'll ensure that once you move on, everyone's mind has been set free and they'll outperform themselves.

Idea generation or brainstorm

Ok. Time to have some fun and do good. This is when you're supposed to do what you came for - generate and create ideas that will make a difference for your company. Even though this is a very free part of the meeting you still have to have someone who leads the meeting. And that person has to be equipped with the right ammunition - a idea generating technique.Techniques

Filtering

Once you've got all those ideas drawn up on the table, wall, whiteboard, cardboard or where ever you've chosen to document them, it's time to filter. Filtering is a process that can be done together with the same group of people that you had creating the ideas in the first place, but I would personally recommend that you filter ideas outside the meeting. There's always a risk that people will fall in love in their idea and therefor they're not very open to scrapping it once the time has come.Time to decideNot here.Create a project