'still brainstorming?

I was listening to a podcast on my way to Melbourne and the guest and podcaster were excited about a little tool they use in idea generation sessions to come up with "heaps of ideas". I was already cringing when they added, almost in unison, "That's great because the more you have, the more chance there is that there will be one or two worthwhile ones."

Why are we still valuing quantity over quality?

More to the point, why are we still 'brainstorming'?

The term 'brainstorming' conjures up different things for different people.

Some simply mean thinking about something together or an ideation session, others mean the true Osbornian-type session – later promoted by the likes of IDEO – where you go for quantity, encourage wild ideas, defer judgement, build on the ideas of others and stay focused on the topic. (These were the rules established by Alex Osborn, VP at BBDO, came up with brainstorming to save the company back in 1938).

It no doubt helped that it started in a cool ad agency and then got lots of PR. What seems to be maintaining it in place is that organisations are opting for methods such as Design Thinking, Lean Six Sigma or Agile – all of which rely heavily on brainstorming for the ideation phase...

I think it also has appeal because it perpetuates the illusion that innovation is all beanbags & sticky notes; that it's easy & fun.

When I hear the word, I immediately think of sessions where I have been given total freedom to go crazy and where the realities of my budget, resources and capabilities were set aside. This may work in an art class but it doesn't work at work.

This may work in an art class but it doesn't work at work.

What's the problem with continuing to brainstorm?

It tends to set unrealistic expectations and generate unrealistic ideas.

Thinking differently – which is key to innovating – is hard work. It goes against the grain. It challenges our biases and assumptions. It impacts people in all sorts of ways and requires big conversations with stakeholders. It implies change and we humans tend to resist change.

At its best, brainstorming might be energising and generate some creative ideas, a sense of empowerment, buy-in and camaraderie. A change of pace and a bit of fun.

At its worst, it can be just as the initials suggest: B.S. It might generate a lot of rubbish.

"Brainstorming initially played an important role promoting creativity in corporations, as executives received a license to share ideas freely. In the hierarchical culture of those times, this was a revolution. But 70 years later, both users and academic research confirm that it does not lead to novel ideas." writes Amon Levav, co-founder of Systematic Inventive Thinking.

In my 15+ years as a corporate intrapreneur then running Systematic Inventive Thinking, I have spent an inordinate amount of time undoing the damage done by exposure to loosely run brainstorming sessions.

I have spent an inordinate amount of time undoing the damage done by exposure to loose brainstorming sessions.

How do I mean "damage"? Quite simply, people have gone to brainstorming sessions in good faith. They have taken time out of their day, engaged in some sort of blue sky thinking and imagined they were Richard Branson or some other out-of-reach personality, they've respected that there was "no such thing as a bad idea" an they have put in time, effort and energy into generating ideas around a topic.

The problem is that when they call Fiona or Geoff 2 weeks or 2 months later to enquire about the progress of the ideas, they hear something like "Yeh, nah, we weren't able to implement anything from that day. [Pregnant pause] But the enjoyable side was good, wasn't it?"

I would wager that those participants won't put their hands up for an innovation workshop in a hurry. They are now cynical about the innovation team. They probably feel that they wasted their time. They might feel that they were taken for a ride; given the impression that their ideas mattered when they didn't... The session reinforced their idea that getting involved in making things better or creating internal or external change is for dreamers...or that they have better things to do.

What else could we do?

If implementation matters and we don't want to waste time and energy testing weak ideas, I think we should add approaches tools that help break our fixedness and do things in counter-intuitive ways. It is when a fixedness is broken that we come up with new ways of thinking and working.

We also need to impose constraints on our thinking this makes us more efficient creative thinkers and dials up the feasibility of our ideas. Creativity loves constraints.

We also need to impose constraints on our thinking this makes us more efficient creative thinkers and dials up the feasibility of our ideas. Creativity loves constraints.

I would add that we also need tools that foster greater enquiry and challenge assumptions...

We may retain elements of play but it will not be fun-first.

I am a big believer in the power of constraints and pattern-based tools. There are some nice ones out there: TRIZ, Biomimicry, Frame Creation... My go-to is Systematic Inventive Thinking (SIT). Nothing beats this method for scanning for blind spots and unearthing inventive ideas that might have been hiding in plain sight.

When tools like this are used and convergence is done well (the topic of my next blog), the ideas will be fewer and will be feasible. That tends to be a far superior process and the results have more chance of bringing about the changes you are seeking.

Get in touch if you'd like to try thinking inside the box!