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What are your innovation goals? |
Why Verbal Brainstorming Fails The ugly truth about brainstorming is that more often than not it leads to mediocre results. In fact, if you've been involved in brainstorming sessions, you've probably experienced more than your share of events in which few truly creative ideas were suggested. There are several reasons why a brainstorming session might fail to generate great creative ideas.
The bad news is that one any of these flaws can spoil a brainstorming event and lead to poor, unimaginative ideas. The good news is that non-verbal brainstorming -- based on images, objects, actions or any combination of these -- not only avoids almost all of the flaws listed above, but seems more reliably to result in better, more usable ideas. Visual Brainstorming Visual brainstorming is about collaboratively generating ideas without using the spoken or written word. You might use objects which teams put together to solve problems. You might use arts and crafts materials such as coloured construction paper, tape, string, card, pens and the like. You might use people to create improvisational role plays. An Example Let's imagine your company manufactures farm machinery. You want to brainstorm new product improvement ideas for your best selling tractors. Rather than running a brainstorming session where people shout out ideas or write ideas on post-it's and stick them to the wall, you set up a visual brainstorming activity. The first step, of course, is to frame the creative challenge, for example: "What new features might we add to our Super Bull Tractors?" This done, you bring together a diverse group of a dozen people from various divisions in the company as well as a few typical customers. You provide them with a huge pile of Lego building bricks and have them work together to build a model tractor with their new feature ideas. Instead of shouting out ideas, the team works together to build a tractor out of Lego. As with verbal brainstorming, each member should be encouraged to participate and try out new ideas. Likewise, criticism must be forbidden. Talking, on the other hand, is perfectly acceptable. But, bear in mind that ideas must be implemented in the Lego model and not simply vocalised. The tractor that the team builds will probably look nothing like the company's existing tractors. But it will probably be bursting with ideas. (Note: actually, in the author's experience, the team will probably break off into sub-teams each building their own tractors - but that's okay. Indeed, if the initial team is large the facilitator should separate it into multiple diverse teams anyway). Once the model is completed, speaking is allowed. The team presents its ideas, explains the features and, where relevant, the logic behind those features. Finally, all of the ideas together with images of the Lego tractor are compiled into a report -- unless the company's management is open minded enough to accept a Lego model in lieu of a report! The advantages to visual brainstorming in the example given include..
Various Approaches Visual brainstorming need not be limited to physical objects such as new products. You may also use it to brainstorm processes, services and activities. All you need is a little imagination and the ability to visualise problems. Here are a few examples.
Clearly, there is substantial room for creative thinking in the approach you take to visually brainstorming a problem. And it is worth investing your time in devising a good approach. After all, a creative brainstorming approach is likely to motivate participants to be extra creative in their ideas. The tools you use in visual brainstorming might include...
And anything else you can get your hands on. Children's toys, in particular, can be useful as well as encourage creative thinking. Indeed, you would do well to spend some time in a toy shop when planning your visual brainstorming activity. Evaluation and Implementation The first step of evaluating ideas from visual brainstorming is to have the team or teams present their models -- or results in the case of role-play -- to a wider audience. This should open discussion on the ideas, their viability and their potential value. At this stage, the facilitator should encourage positive feedback. Instead of criticising weaknesses, the audience should be encouraged to remark upon potential weaknesses and challenge the team to improve upon their ideas. In the example above, an audience member might remark: "The automatic gearbox is a good idea, but I am worried it would not be as reliable as our customers expect our products to be. How could you ensure a high level of reliability?" The next step is typically to put the results in a written report. At this stage, traditional idea evaluation approaches such as criteria based evaluation matrices, SWOT analyses, business cases and the like may be applied. Implementation of good ideas should be the result of any brainstorming activity. Surprisingly, many great ideas never reach the implementation stage. Don't let that happen to your ideas! The Creative Idea Implementation Plan is a useful tool for planning idea implementation. Conclusion The author has seen considerable success with visual brainstorming, including..
That said, visual brainstorming requires a higher level of creativity in the planning stage in terms of devising an effective approach and appropriate tools. Moreover, socially conservative business people may be reluctant to play with children's toys and may need to be convinced of the value of the activity. Your best approach would be to run some trail visual brainstorming events with friends, sympathetic colleagues, students or other groups who can provide useful feedback. In addition, we at jpb.com now provide visual brainstorming facilitation. Contact us for details. This has also been born out by research, such as Group Genius: The Creative Power of Collaboration; (Book) by Keith Sawyer.
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