How to . . . make brainstorming effective:  By Carly Chynoweth (From The Times)

1 Don't expect too much

Brainstorming is a management fad, Rob Briner, Professor of Organisational Psychology at Birkbeck College, University of London, said. “The research says that getting people together to create ideas is not very effective, although it is popular.” People find working in groups “cognitively distracting”, particularly because they worry about others assessing their contribution, which makes creative thinking more difficult.

2 Get people to go it alone

Experiments suggest that eight people working as a group come up with far fewer ideas than eight people working separately, Professor Briner said. He suggests asking people to develop ideas individually, perhaps as the precursor to a group brainstorming session. “When you are talking you are performing, but when you are just writing by yourself you get much more discipline into the thinking process ... Writing things down helps people to think in a more creative way.”

3 Ask the right questions

“Creativity is not coming up with 1,001 different alternatives, but asking the right question,” Andy Green, director of the Flexible Thinking Forum, a creative thinking organisation, said. “When you have a beautiful question, your ideas ooze out. Conversely, if you’re stuck and can’t think of any ideas, go back and redefine your question.” It’s up to the session facilitator to keep people focused and to stop things veering wildly off course or descending into a series of debates, Chris Baréz-Brown, the author of How to Have Kick-Ass Ideas, said.

4 Choose the right participants

The broader the mix of participants, the more interesting the ideas are likely to be. Choose four to eight people from a range of ages, disciplines and backgrounds who can spare at least an hour. “Some of our most incredible successes have come from people of whom we might normally say: ‘Why are they in the meeting?’ ” Nicholas Miller, the chief executive of Kyp, a marketing company, said.

5 Prepare the environment

You’ll need a room with notepaper, pens, charts, drinks, food — everything you can think of to cocoon people, Mr Miller said. You don’t want to stop the flow to order more sandwiches or extra markers. Mr Baréz-Brown recommends a “flexible and fun” venue, preferably somewhere outside the normal working environment, if possible. Professor Briner, however, does not think that environmental changes make much difference: “I don’t think creativity works like that.”

6 Don't rush to judgment

“Accept that most of your ideas

will be rubbish, but at the outset you have no idea what are the good and what the not-so-good ideas,” Mr Green said. “Premature evaluation is a major killer of potential brilliance.” Mr Miller agreed. “There are plenty of bad ideas, but in a brainstorming session we want people to ... leave judgment until the end.” Create a non-critical atmosphere and consider having a senior person start the ball rolling with a particularly crazy idea so that others feel less intimidated about speaking up.

7 Keep a record

“Have someone in the room who is very good at taking notes,” Mr Miller said. “You want the ideas to fly as quickly as possible, but you want people to catch them. We also recommend circulating the notes afterwards to make sure we haven’t missed anything.” But don’t try to record everything that is said in the meeting, Mr Baréz-Brown said. “Writing down a list of unrelated thoughts won’t get you anywhere ... Wait until you have built up an idea. People often try to write things down too soon and end up with a load of rubbish.”

8 Ideas are only the beginning

Brainstorming is about more than simply generating ideas; once this has been done, they need to be evaluated against formal, objective criteria established at the outset, Mr Green said. Only a handful will prove to be worth exploring further, According to Mr Miller: “Once the idea-generation stage is over, it’s time to look at the ideas in a more critical way. For example, you might ask: ‘If we were trying to sell this to a customer, how would we describe it?’ ”

9 Win hearts and minds

Brainstorming sessions can have benefits beyond a list of new ideas. “They may achieve other things, such as team-bonding,” Professor Briner said. They can also be a way to help to get naysayers on board by involving them from the outset, Mr Green said. “It can be a great tactic to overcome political opposition to new ideas.”

10 Follow through at a later date

Creativity does not end when the conference room empties. Ask people to come back to the group with any ideas that come to them later, Mr Miller said. “Sometimes my best ideas come when I am on my way home or when I wake up in the middle of the night.” However, be wary of asking for any ideas at all unless you plan to use some of them; people get fed up with creating ideas that do not go anywhere, Professor Briner said.

Source:  http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/management/article6985219.ece