Comprehensive Guide To Effective Brainstorming

Logicalities, prosperity, determination, and tolerance are all the qualities you need in order to survive and prove yourself in this new age of competition. But all of them are worthless without an innovative idea. The ability to search for a unique solution to any problem is what draws the line between experience and unfamiliarity with the business.

Most of the time, all you need is to sit somewhere in peace and let your mind travel through the ocean of ideas. To master the art of exploring the concept and implementing it, you need to learn active brainstorming.

Now most people know what brainstorming is. Although leaders are the one who create their own path and others follow them, it is essential to find the peculiarities that work for a marketer and guarantee a positive result. Here, we take a look at precisely what brainstorming is.

What is Brainstorming?

Brainstorming is a process of considering every thought of yours, no matter how bizarre or weird it feels, and searching for ideas. Some transform this thought into an actual marketing process later, but the first goal is to think outside the box about something unique.

Brainstorming can be a group-wise or specific procedure depending on the situation. Sometimes, just one person may not know how to plan and process an idea. A group brainstorming, however, will allow you to widen your horizons on creative thinking and can get your employees involved in the business, who then become more willing to initiate.

Process of Brainstorming

You need to follow the steps below whenever you have a brainstorming session.

●     Create a favorable environment

You need to organize a comfortable workspace where people can think and feel inspired As well as focused. Just imagine a room with bizarre colors or lighting. It will be challenging to concentrate in such an environment.

●     Appoint a Secretary

There should be one person in the room who attentively notes down all the things that were discussed in the brainstorming session.

●     Organise an Introduction Session

If the team you’re working with consists of members who’ve never worked together before, organise a warm-up session for them. Introduce them to each other, discuss project ideas, add humor to the conversation, and make them comfortable to work with each other.

●     Give a detailed objective of the session

Even if all the people present in the room know what the meeting is about, describe the aim of meeting in detail. All the points of the meeting should be distinct.

●     Don't rush into decisions

Give your team enough time to process the ideas and work on them. Don't abruptly rush into any decisions right away.

●     Keep your team motivated

You need to keep motivating your team on every stage. That will bring up the best in each member.

●     Don't gather a big crowd

Try to limit the strength of group in each session to no more than ten people. This will help in increasing focus.

Brainstorming Tools

●     Six Thinking Hats

This technique will help you prevent any arguments that can happen amongst a group of people with different perspectives, each one of which is valid, thinking about the same idea.

There are six types of hats — one for each task.

1.     White Hat

With this hat, you focus on all the data you have collected. Look at the information, analyze it, and make decisions accordingly.

2.     Red Hat

The person wearing a red hat will look at the problem with his/her own perspective that’s entirely based on gut feeling and intuition.

3.     Black Hat

The person wearing a black hat will look at the possible negative outcomes of any process while scrutinizing every decision cautiously and defensively.

4.     Yellow Hat

The yellow hat represents the optimist point of view of an idea, which takes into consideration every positive aspect of your design.

5.     Green Hat

The green hat represents creativity. It will help you develop creative solutions to the problems.

6.     Blue Hat

The blue hat represents people who are the leaders or directors of the meeting. If the team is stuck somewhere and needs specific direction, the person wearing the blue hat will lighten the path.

●     Mind Map

Mind mapping is a way of getting ideas out of your mind. It involves sucking out ideas of your mind and getting them on paper. The process of mind mapping involves the following:

1.     Determine your goal and write it in the centre of a page.

2.     After determining the central concept, you need to identify the sub-themes and draw branches to them from the centre. This will look like a mesh or spider web.

3.     Try to use concise sentences. Even a word will be enough.

4.     You can add visuals to make the map more impactful.

5.     You need to think of a minimum of two points for each sub-theme you have created.

●     SCAMPER

When you’re trying to improve or develop an idea, SCAMPER is a beneficial mnemonic to remember.

1.     'S' in SCAMPER stands for substitute. You need to determine if you can replace any part of the process with any other part.

2.     'C' stands for the combine. Here, you need to analyse if you can combine two parts of the process to improvise the service.

3.     'A' stands for Adapt. You need to find out if you can modify the given procedure to improve it.

4.     'M' stands for Modify. You need to determine the modifications that can be achieved in a process.

5.     'P' stands for ‘Put to Another use’. This should help you think about the other applications of your service.

6.     'E' stands for Eliminate. Here, you need to see if there’s any part of the process you can eliminate.

7.     'R' stands for Reverse. In this technique, you need to determine if the process can be rearranged in a different order.

●     Affinity Diagram

The affinity diagrams organize many ideas into their relationship with each other. The process of building an Affinity Diagram is given below:

1.     Record every idea that’s discussed on separate papers.

2.     Take a look at the ideas which can relate and create a process.

3.     Discuss these ideas with your team.

4.     Combine these ideas to form groups that can work together.

●     Concept Maps

Concept maps are a visual representation of the knowledge you already have about a topic. The process of creating Concept maps is,

1.     You need to list all the key concepts that are related to the problem.

2.     Then, you need to build upon the concept to elaborate on the central elements or critical ideas.

3.     The final step is to identify the links between these concepts.

You can carry out a productive brainstorming session if you use the brainstorming tools above whenever you need to think of something innovative, have to sit down, and let your mind wander. These techniques will certainly help you think of something creative and unique.