Working remotely can pose some challenges when it comes to generating and organizing ideas with your team. How can you ensure that everyone has a chance to contribute, share feedback, and align on the best solutions? Here are some effective ways to facilitate creative and collaborative brainstorming sessions with your remote team.
The first step is to select the tools that will enable your team to communicate, collaborate, and capture ideas effectively. Depending on your needs and preferences, you might use video conferencing, chat, email, shared documents, online whiteboards, mind mapping, or project management software. Make sure that everyone has access to and is familiar with the tools you choose, and that they are compatible with your devices and networks.
Before you start brainstorming, make sure that everyone understands the purpose, scope, and expected outcomes of the session. Define the problem or challenge you are trying to solve, the criteria for evaluating ideas, and the timeline and deliverables for the project. Establish some ground rules for the session, such as how long it will last, how to participate, how to give and receive feedback, and how to document and follow up on the ideas.
Brainstorming involves two phases: divergent thinking, where you generate as many ideas as possible without judging or filtering them, and convergent thinking, where you narrow down and refine the ideas based on their feasibility and relevance. To foster divergent thinking, you can use techniques such as brainstorming questions, prompts, scenarios, or analogies to stimulate your team's creativity and curiosity. To facilitate convergent thinking, you can use methods such as voting, ranking, grouping, or scoring to prioritize and select the best ideas.
My favorite tool to use for divergent thinking is FigJam. You can get a group of people brainstorming very quickly together in a meeting this way. It shows your staff that you respect their time and want to make efficient use of meetings. Using a collaborative whiteboard tool such as FigJam also prevents your most talkative staff from dominating the conversation, and helps everyone feel that their ideas will be given equal attention, even if they don’t have the loudest voice in the room. To ensure accessibility for people who need more time to communicate, share the link to access FigJam ahead of time. Those that prefer the extra time to share their ideas can log on and start contributing ideas so they don’t feel rushed in the meeting.
One of the benefits of working with a remote team is that you can tap into the diverse perspectives, experiences, and skills of your team members. To leverage this diversity, you can invite input from different roles, functions, backgrounds, and locations. You can also encourage your team to challenge assumptions, ask questions, and offer constructive criticism. By creating a culture of inclusion and respect, you can foster a more productive and innovative brainstorming process.
The final way to generate and organize ideas remotely is to experiment and iterate. Rather than settling for the first or the most obvious solution, you can test your ideas with prototypes, simulations, or feedback sessions. You can also iterate on your ideas by incorporating new insights, data, or feedback from your team or stakeholders. By adopting a mindset of experimentation and iteration, you can improve your ideas and solutions over time.
The last but not least way to generate and organize ideas remotely is to celebrate and reward your team's efforts and achievements. Brainstorming can be a challenging and exhausting activity, so it is important to acknowledge and appreciate your team's contributions, creativity, and collaboration. You can celebrate and reward your team by sharing positive feedback, recognition, or incentives. You can also celebrate and reward your team by implementing their ideas and showcasing their impact.