I just saw a New Yorker article about the futility of brainstorming. Over the years, I’ve facilitated well over a hundred sessions ranging from small workgroups to big, executive-laden festivals. Like anything else, it can work, but isn’t the right tool for every situation. It’s also not the way to get the best from certain personality types. Brilliant introverts and hyper-stimulated extroverts will work together about as well as calamari cheesecake.
Too often, I’ve caught people trying to use brainstorming as a substitute/short cut for actual work. Just as Twinkies and Pringles look a lot like food, but aren’t, brainstorming creates a flurry of activity that to the untrained eye, looks a lot like work, but isn’t.
I find brainstorming works best when:
- It’s part of a larger, necessary and urgent initiative, instead of a standalone tack-on with unclear or unrealistic expectations.
- There is strong accountability and ownership for follow-ups (e.g. heads will roll if X isn’t launched by June).
- Insights are gathered from the outside world, particularly from observed behaviors rather than surveys or studies, which are often methodologically flawed. Using insights as a springboard – and engaging participants in gathering those insights, reduces the chances of myopic, uninformed discussions. This should keep Bob from Marketing from once again, bringing up his dumb idea about edible packaging.
- Groups are small, creative, apolitical, have existing rapport and some stake in the success of the overall project. (If for some reason un-creative, overly judgmental, or negative people must be invited, just check their calendars first. Find weeks they’re on vacation or inspecting the new factory in Budapest).
In the last few years, I’ve probably talked more people out of brainstorming 
than into it. You probably should too. Brainstorming can’t replace insights gathering, research, analysis, experimentation, and individual will and creativity. If real outcomes (not political showmanship) are the driving force behind an NPD/innovation effort, you’ll often achieve better results with a small team of creative individuals than a large group putting on Brainstorming, The Musical. As always, the prescription should fit the ailment. (Or, punishment fit the crime!)
Most importantly, no one should look to brainstorming as some kind of panacea. It should be one of many tools in the toolkit. The best analogy is online dating. I’ve seen plenty of people hinge their entire love life on their poor avatar, then get sad or despondent when the tsunami of supermodels never comes. In innovation, as in love, it’s best to engage with the world, meet lots of people, and mix it up a little. That way, you’re not sitting in some depressing room, wondering why your tool is such a colossal disappointment.
What are your thoughts and experiences?
imagecredit: stefanleijon.com; columbiamissourian.com; futurity.org
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Steve Faktor is an entrepreneur, futurist, digital commerce expert, a global keynote speaker, and author Econovation (Wiley). The former Vice President and Head of the Chairman’s Innovation Fund at American Express, you can find him at ideafaktory, developing patents, incubating new businesses, and provoking new thinking on business…with a satirical touch.
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Good article!
As an innovation consultant clients perennially ask for brainstorming sessions. Sometimes this is appropriate, but often like you say it’s not the best option. I’ve worked on several projects where clients already have a treasure chest full of great ideas but don’t know how to move them forward. Therefore I’d recommend always having a review of previous output before defaulting to a brainstorm. (Even if all of those ideas are rejected it’s often as insightful to find out why).
Another top tip for brainstorms is ALWAYS use fresh stimulus (especially visuals). Re-exposing staff to tired old stimulus they’ve seen multiple time is less likely to give you participant the spare of innovation they need.
Thank you for posting an article that presents brainstorming as a tool – not the entire creative process. There have been many articles in popular press lately capturing people attention by claiming that brainstorming doesn’t work. When examined, its clear these folks have not placed brainstorming in the proper context – it’s a tool. You use it like any other tool – for those situations that call for it. You wouldn’t get the best results smoothing a surface with a hammer, but a sander – that might just do the job.
My new book, “The Innovative Team” demonstrates through story-telling how the entire creative process can work for a team and shows many divergent and convergent strategies. My co-author, Dr. Gerard Puccio of the International Center for Studies in Creativity also posted a fabulous critique of the recent fun people have had bashing brainstorming. You can find that here:
http://www.profnetconnect.com/gerardpuccio/blog/2012/02/02/the_demise_of_brainstorming_has_been_exaggerated:_a_reply_to_lehrers__piece_in_the_new_yorker
Hope you find this helpful,
Chris
The “rules of brainstorming” include not discussing ideas while creating a written list of them. The idea has been to defer judgment while going for quantity. It turns out this is not the best way to get the best ideas.
Here’s something about brainstorming that was news to me. The first empirical test of brainstorming technique was performed at Yale University in 1958. Students working alone came up with about twice as many solutions as brainstorming groups. And the solutions were judged more “feasible” and “effective.” Numerous follow-up studies have come to the same conclusion. Keith Sawyer, a psychologist at Washington University, has summarized: “Decades of research have consistently shown that brainstorming groups think of far fewer ideas than the same number of people who work alone and later pool their ideas.” (This is an item from my blog post: “Leadership Communication and the turtle” which you can see at the website listed above.
Hi
Very interesting & thoughy provoking post. I wonder what is actually meant when we say “brainstorming works”?
That we get a range of ideas? Sure but they’re not exhaustive or high quality.
From my experience of developing new products with Multinationals in dozens of countries atound the world, the only time brainstorm “worked” was in letting all people in the group feel part of the innovation process and even then I think it didn’t actually work as the “ideas” congregated towards a groupthink mean, with most ideas dumped into the trash. And even where brainstorming has been used to engage its a very weak way of engaging as it is very prone to “social loafing” (Karau & Williams 1993).
I agree with the comments in general that brainstorming is but one technique in generating creativity although I refuse to use this technique any more as its efficacy is clearly poor.