- What is the brainstorming?
- Benefits of brainstorming
- How to make a session brainstorming?
- tools to make a brainstorming on-line
We explain what brainstorming or brainstorming is and what its benefits are. In addition, we tell you how to do it and with what tools.
What is the brainstorming?
The brainstorming (of English brain, “brain”, and storm, "storm"), known in Spanish as rain of ideas or storm of ideas, is a technique of team work with which it is sought to obtain ideas innovative and original points of view, through the free and massive generation of ideas around a topic of interest. The objective of this technique is that, by adding the ideas of the group members, a critical mass of thought can be reached and then the best ideas obtained can be selected.
The method of brainstorming It was formally proposed by the American publicist Alex Faickney Osborn (1888-1966), based on a series of experiences with a group of advertising creatives, who together could obtain more and better proposals than any of them separately. The foundations of his experience were collected in his book The Principles and Procedures of Creative Thinking ("The principles and procedures of creative thought"), 1953.
The brainstorming It is used today in different situations in which it is desired to obtain a massive set of ideas or points of view in order to later choose the most convenient of them. It is a very popular method of producing ideas and often used without knowledge of it, whose basic principles are the postponement of critical judgment and the free association of the thought.
As with all anglicisms and foreign language loanwords, the term brainstorming should always be written in italics in Spanish.
Benefits of brainstorming
The idea behind brainstorming is that many heads create better than one, and therefore, freely adding the ideas of the group, it is possible to advance towards the selection of the best. This is a highly debated notion, questioned by various psychological approaches, advocates of individuality as the source of creativity; however, the application of brainstorming in the processes of group exploration of an idea, a topic or a perspective is extremely popular today.
In fact, brainstorming is a very common method in the industry advertising and in graphic design, especially when it comes to creating an advertising campaign from scratch.
The brainstorming It has the virtue of allowing group integration and free exploration of ideas, which encourages creativity with a sense of shared adventure. In fact, in his notes Osborn found the best possible results when the exchange of ideas occurred free of hierarchies Y evaluations, that is, in an entirely horizontal plane.
In short, the brainstorming It has the virtues of:
- Allow the creativity of the group to flow freely, exploring any idea without restriction.
- It allows overcoming the traditional barriers in the proposal of new content, such as the judgment of superiors or the opinion of the companions.
- encourages the innovation and daring among creatives, and also optimizes the communication among group members.
- Helps keep the team motivated, feeling that their ideas are taken into account no matter how daring they are.
- Maximizes the production of novel ideas by prioritizing quantity over quality.
How to make a session brainstorming?
To organize a session brainstorming we must gather the participants in the same group and ask them to bring a pencil and paper. The meeting place should have a blackboard or some support on which to write down and display the ideas that arise, in which the topic to think freely during a certain time (usually an hour) should be clearly written.
the session of brainstorming is guided by four main rules, which are:
- Postpone the trial during the session. All the ideas that arise are noted down, without distinction, without issuing critical judgments or assessments of any nature, or making any comments that hinder the flow of ideas and proposals. The judgments and opinions will have their place after the ideas have sprouted and the selection phase must be passed.
- Think freely. The session should encourage the free boiling of ideas, no matter how crazy they may be. What is sought is to remove the obstacles to creativity and register ideas with more energy, since it is simpler to perfect an existing idea than to find one that is perfect from the beginning.
- More is more. It is important that the ideas are many, since this way there will be a greater variety to choose from later. In addition, the best ideas will emerge as you go, inspired by the first 20 to 25, which are usually not very original or powerful. A session of brainstorming You can perfectly contemplate 50 to 100 ideas, depending on the context.
- Get away from purity. The participants in the session will be able to totally or partially rework the ideas of others, making connections, introducing alternatives and, in general, being as less attached to the original as desired. The important thing is not to respect the idea of the other, but to come up with the most innovative, creative or adapted proposal to the context that is needed.
Once the time for the appearance of the ideas is over, the discussion and selection will proceed, reducing the available set until the best idea is found.Then it will be submitted to review and discussion, to see if it can be improved or strengthened, and finally the definitive idea will be found.
tools to make a brainstorming on-line
There are numerous online platforms to conduct sessions of brainstormingboth group and individual. Mostly it is about software virtual meeting-capable workstations, bringing people together in different locations. Some of the best known are:
- freemind
- GitMind
- mindly
- Omni Outliner
- WorkFlowy
- slack