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Brainstorming
What is it?
Brainstorming is a lively technique that helps a group generate as many
ideas as possible in a short time period.
Who uses it?
The team members, the management, or the users can all participate in
brainstorming. If you invite people with different perspectives to brainstorm, you are more likely to see innovative ideas generated by the group.
Why use it?
To identify problems, analyze causes, select alternative solutions, do strategic planning, generate ideas for marketing change, and handle many other situations.
When to use it?
In the facility, with community or user groups, in meetings.
How to use it:
- Explain the objective of the session: for example, to select
problems, analyze causes, or generate ideas.
- Explain the technique to the group. Tell them that you are
looking for a lot of ideas, and that you want their thoughts and ideas to flow freely. There is no right or wrong answer. The idea of brainstorming is to produce as many innovative ideas as possible.
In countries where participation in meetings is structured, brainstorming takes practice. (If you set up a brainstorming session in which many participants have no real experience in expressing their
opinions and many levels of staff are present, it can produce a deafening silence.)
- Silent reflection: Ask the participants to think about the
proposed objective or topic for a few minutes. Time: approximately 5 minutes.
- Brainstorm: The participants call out their ideas and add those that come to mind during the discussion. Annotate them on a flip chart in the order they are mentioned. Write down the ideas using the words of the speaker. Ask for clarification only if the meaning is not
clear. Time: approximately 20 minutes.
(For groups with little or no experience in brainstorming, it is often useful to have them practice in small subgroups before convening before the entire group.)
- Once the list is finished, discuss it with the group
to:
- Clarify the meaning of some ideas
- Combine similar ideas that are worded in different ways
- Eliminate those ideas which are not related to the objective of the
session
- Do all this by group consensus. Time: 5-15 minutes. At the end of this stage, you will have reduced the list of ideas to those that represent most of the major ideas of the group.
Example:
Here is an example of how brainstorming is used to help identify the problem.
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