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

• 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.

•A piece of trivia for you

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