brainstorming How do you do it Why brainstorm

brainstorming How do you do it?

Why brainstorm? • Promotes your creative thinking • Generate – Ideas – New concepts – Problem solutions • Promotes liberated thinking – Free of Judgment

Why brainstorm? – All ideas should be voiced • Group sessions stimulate everyone's creative thinking • Don't try to find the answer • Brainstorming promotes group relations

What goes • Everything can be said – No evaluation – No decisions until later – No criticism – No fine details • Comes later during review • The more ideas, the better, the higher the chance of success

What goes • No idea is too – Expensive – Exotic – Bizarre – Trivial • Encourage – Existing idea

What goes • Combinations • Adaptations • Improvements • Expansion

• A piece of trivia for you • Did you know the idea of velcro was conceived during a brainstorming session between NASA designers to find a replacement for zips on the spacesuits? • The person came up with the idea when he thought of how thorns stick to your clothes.

How do you do it? • Self – Your subject is the Mind Map title – Imagine you have an "inner advisor" who gives you ideas and solutions – Use tab to add your first idea off the title • Shift-tab to add forthcoming ideas – Stop • When ideas run dry

How do you do it? • Have collected a sufficient number – Evaluate • Delete Duplications • Delete those not relevant – Organize • Order according to preference – Use the Outliner

How do you do it? – Click and drag – Expand on the favorites • Add child branches with further detail • Group – Assign • A "recorder" – Records each idea

How do you do it? • A session Leader – Controls who's turn it is to speak and maintains the flow of ideas • Everyone else is "the panel" – The more people the more ideas - but a group of 15+ is hard to manage • The Leader and Recorder can participate too – Proposing Ideas • Are spoken spontaneously

How do you do it? • In rapid sequence • Don't elaborate (yet!) – Setup • Remind everyone the reason for the session • Title the Mind Map with your subject • Have a quiet minute or two to think before proposing – Commencing

How do you do it? • The Recorder uses tab to add the first branch – Ready for the first idea – Use shift-tab for subsequent ideas! • You can go around the table clockwise to open the floor – Stop • When ideas run dry • Have collected a sufficient number

How do you do it? – Evaluate • Delete Duplications • Delete those not relevant – Organize • Order according to preference – Use the Outliner – Click and drag

How do you do it? – Expand on the favorites • Add child branches with further detail

About Brainstorming. . . • Coined in 1948 by Alex Osborne (an advertising executive) • Taps into the brain's capacity for lateral thinking & free association