Why we should avoid using Brainstorming

Brainstorming is a widely known group setting technique focusing on quantity over quality, this technique is used mainly to generate too much ideas in a short amount of time. Typically it is lead by a facilitator, and she/he should be well trained, facilitator states the objective of the session or what should be the outcome and list few ground rules like.

• All ideas are welcomed whatever strange or unrealistic they are.
• No judgment or criticism should be there.
• Generate as many ideas as you can in short time (Focus on quantity not. quality)
• And you can build on previous ideas.

Easy, isn't it. Many people - business analysts not an exception - consider Brainstorming when doing any elicitation activity, as it is easy and could be performed anytime provided a good number of participants are there.

Actually Brainstorming was introduced 1953 by Alex Osborn but it was originally emerged to life in 1919 during WWI by a partner of an advertising agency who wants his employees to "Think Up"

Despite it's benefits and fast way of getting ideas, plain brainstorming has some drawbacks

1. Politics: if you conduct a brainstorming in a place where politics is obvious, you will get biased ideas that converge to where power is reside.
2. Halo effect: When you perform a brainstorming within company or organization with the presence of a manager or a well known figure, participants may fall under the hallo effect, which is tendency to follow whatever person saying or doing assuming she or he are always right or have the knowledge and experience.
3. Group thinking influence: Conducting a brainstorming session with the same group will lead to the same ideas, this make getting new ideas or innovative ideas which is the goal of brainstorming difficult
4. Personality differences: this is one of the most important disadvantage of brainstorming. People are different, some are extrovert and others are introvert. Some have loud voice and other you barely could hear them speaking. This lead to many unheard voices and many undiscovered ideas.

So, should we abandon brainstorming totally and consider it a bad elicitation technique. Answer is NO, as we may face issues with standard brainstorming technique, we may consider implementing variations of it. I will list some modified brainstorming techniques that overcome many of the disadvantages of the standard one

• Brain Writing: After sharing the topic with the group, everyone write their ideas separately on piece of paper and handed it to the facilitator. This will remove bias and halo effect and also will allow those introvert people to participate.
• Rapid ideation: This is a variation of brain writing, as a time limit is set for participants to ensure they generate large number of ideas in a shorter time.
• Round Robin: This is to make sure that everyone participated, team forms a circle and the facilitator ask everyone to participate at their turn. Every team member shares only one idea at once, but they may build on their ideas once their turn comes again.

Another important tip while conducting brainstorming is to make sure you have member of different backgrounds and different departments, ages, genders. As this will help you getting different kind of ideas. Also make sure to have Brainstorming ground rules clear and in a place everyone can see.

Wish you all a successful brainstorming session