Brainstorming is a technique that academicians, researchers, and project managers employ to come up with solutions for any problem easily. When the team sits down to brainstorm, they come up with better solutions, and at the same time, they learn which team member provides an easy-going solution and which employee fails to participate.
Learning how to brainstorm effectively is a gateway to unlocking your creativity and enabling new ways to find ideas and strategies. In this article, we will cover the importance of brainstorming, different strategies to conduct an effective brainstorming session, and how EdrawMind helps in brainstorming without much effort.
In this article
What is Brainstorming
At its core, Brainstorming is a process of generating ideas. This dynamic process offers a platform where different individuals come together to tap into their collective wisdom. With the right brainstorming, teams encourage open discussions and even explore diverse viewpoints on different topics. For small to large organizations or even for personal endeavors, brainstorming has proved to be a crucial method for innovation and decision-making.
There are several benefits of conducting a brainstorming session, like:
- It sparks creativity and promotes innovative thinking among individuals.
- It encourages diverse contributions, leading to different viewpoints.
- Brainstorming explores unconventional ideas that might have been overlooked at an early ideation stage.
- It helps in generating a pool of potential solutions.
How to Brainstorm: 7 Effective Strategies for Success
If you are wondering how to brainstorm and are worried about where to start it, check out the following effective strategies to ensure a successful brainstorming session.
Step 1: Define Goals
Begin brainstorming by setting the purpose of the session, outlining the problems, and setting clear expectations with the participants.
Step 2: Participants
Choosing the right participants is the key to having a good brainstorm. Try to assemble a diverse group of people with varying perspectives and expertise. This will initiate different viewpoints and will lead to generating more innovative ideas.
Step 3: Free-Flowing Ideas
Try to establish a more inclusive environment among all the team members. This leads to creating a place where all the participants feel comfortable sharing their unconventional ideas.
Step 4: Visual Aids
You can never go wrong with a visual representation of your ideas. Use EdrawMind to create mind maps or different elaborated charts to represent your set of ideas visually. This would enable more dynamic results.
Step 5: Try Analogies
Ask your participants to explore the problems from different perspectives. Try to enable methods like gap-filling, figure-storming, and mind mapping to generate fresh insights and unexpected connections.
Step 6: Expand Ideas
Once your team members start collaborating on different ideas, encourage them to build up on each other's suggestions. Try not to evaluate or judge the ideas at this stage -- just accept the ideas and ask the next member to build upon them so they can easily refine the concepts.
Step 7: Refine
During the concluding minutes of your brainstorming session, identify the most promising concepts that align with the aforementioned goals and objectives. Take all that information, filter out the ideas, and prioritize them as per the development process.
How to Brainstorm in an Easier Way
Now that you have understood different strategies to brainstorm, here is how to brainstorm with the powerful mind mapping tool - EdrawMind.
Step 1Launch EdrawMind
The first and foremost step that you need to do here is to download EdrawMind to your system. If you are planning to have a remote brainstorming session, we recommend checking out the online version of this mind-mapping tool. Once logged in, you will see different layout options that will get you started.
Step 2Template Selection
Head to the 'Mindmap Gallery' section to look for free templates for brainstorming. In the search bar, look for the topic that comes closest to your requirement and 'Duplicate' the content. Once inside the EdrawMind canvas, head to the 'Slideshow' option on the top and click on 'Brainstorming' to enable an instant brainstorming panel.
Step 3Content Addition
In the 'Brainstorming' section, you can start your discussion. Take that discussion and add them to the imported layout.
Step 4Customization
Once you are done evaluating the ideas, you can customize them by changing the layout, colors, background, and more.
Step 5Export to Share
After creating the visual representation of your brainstorming session, export it into different formats (PDF, JPG, PNG, SVG, HTML) for further evaluation. You can also share the visual aid with different social media platforms.
Brainstorming Method That Enhances Efficiency
When you start brainstorming on EdrawMind, you will realize that there are several brainstorming techniques that you can follow. There are over 14 brainstorming techniques that would help you successfully run a brainstorming session. Here, we have laid out a couple of them to make you understand them a little better.
- Mind Mapping: Mind mapping is one of the easiest and most useful dynamic methods to have a successful brainstorming session. Use EdrawMind to visualize the ideas and find relevant connections between different sets of thoughts.
- Brainwriting: Ask your team members to write down their contributions. The more they will write, the more ideas they will generate. This way, they won't be influenced by the dominating voices of the group.
- The 6/3/5 Method: Invite a total of six participants. Ask them to write three ideas each within five minutes. Then pass their ideas to the others and ask them to build upon those ideas. This would lead to a rapid exchange of different yet unique concepts.
- Storyboarding: Storyboarding is an age-old brainstorming method where we sketch out ideas in a visual sequence. This allows the participants to explore different narratives and user experiences.
- Reverse Brainstorming: Instead of coming up with the solution, try aggravating the situation to such a limit that you will have n-numbers of problems. Once you have the issues in hand, try to gather useful insights and avoid those negative aspects at a later stage.
Conclusion
You cannot master brainstorming if you only use traditional methods. If you are still wondering how to brainstorm, remember that to run a successful brainstorm, you need to master the craft of different techniques and have a commitment to creative exploration, and a tool like EdrawMind should be within your reach. With the right method and creative approach, you can embrace the power of brainstorming sessions to find solutions while embracing all the ideas put forward by your team to drive meaningful results.
EdrawMind
AppsEdrawMind Online
