New ideas and solutions are the bread and butter for company growth and effectiveness. After all, who doesn’t want to come up with the next big thing? But getting the brainstorm process started can often be challenging and lead to road blocks and lower productivity when the right questions are not asked. Although you may have been in brainstorms before, you may be missing key elements that are making them less effective. Without the right process, strong ideas will remain out of reach. In this presentation, our panel of experts will walk you through the key steps for a successful brainstorming session, the overall ideation process and how to challenge assumptions.

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How to Run an Effective
Brainstorm Session
Hile-lights Presents:
©2019 Hileman Group. All rights reserved.

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HOUSEKEEPING

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INTRODUCTIONS
Craig Minch, Director of Creative Services
Kate Penrod, Sr.Visual Designer

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POLL
HILEMAN G ROUP
Have you ever participated
in a structured brainstorm
before?
We use brainstorms for:
Naming a blog
Coming up with Marketing Campaigns
Branding (naming, logo development,
etc…)
Event Marketing Concepts
Poll:

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1 2 3
A GEN DA
What we are going to discuss
Preparing for
a Brainstorm
Running a
Brainstorm Session
Putting it
AllTogether

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What is a Brainstorm?

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BRAINSTORMING
Brainstorming is the mode of the design process in which you concentrate on idea
generation. Mentally, it represents a process of ‘going wide’ in terms of concepts
and outcomes. Ideation provides both the fuel and the source material for
building prototypes and getting innovative solutions into the hands of your users.
OVERVIEW

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BRAINSTORMING
BENEFITS
Brainstorm sessions can help you:
• Ask the right questions and innovate with a strong focus on your users, their needs, and your
insights about them
• Bring together perspectives and strengths of your team members
• Uncover unexpected areas of innovation
• Get the obvious solutions out of your heads, and drive your team beyond them

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BRAINSTORMING
Brainstorming is about pushing for the widest possible range of ideas
from which you can select, not simply finding a single best solution.
BENEFITS

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CHALLENGING ASSUMPTIONS
Asking stupid questions is not stupid at all!
You brainstorm in order to transition from identifying problems to creating
solutions for your users.This is your chance to combine the understanding you
have of the problem space and people you are solving for with your imagination
to generate innovative ideas.
BRAINSTORMING

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Preparing for a Brainstorm

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BRAINSTORMING
Research and observation – watching,
engaging with and listening to your
users.
Making sense of the information gathered to
construct a meaningful and actionable
problem statement (or point of view)
Wandering into a brainstorm without any preparation can cause
trouble.
EMPATHIZE DEFINE
PREPARATION

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BRAINSTORMING
• Define the type of person you are solving for – your user
• Synthesize your user’s most essential needs, which are the most important to fulfill
• Needs should all be verbs
• Express insights developed – not just wants or needs
WRITING A POV

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BRAINSTORMING
WRITING A POV
User Need Insigh
t
Adult professionals
working in a small
office
Motivate office mates to
tidy up after themselves
in community kitchen
area
Everyone wants to
avoid a time
consuming clean up of
the kitchen, but no one
will make the first step
to avoid it

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BRAINSTORMING
POV MADLIB
You can articulate a POV by combining
these three elements – user, need, and
insight – as an actionable problem
statement that can help drive the
brainstorm session.

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BRAINSTORMING
Professionals in a small office space need to motivate each other to
tidy up after themselves in the community kitchen space to avoid
starting a growing mountain of dishes.
OUR POV

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BRAINSTORMING
POV CRITERIA
Make sure that your POV is one that:
• Provides a narrow focus
• Frames the problem as a problem statement
• Inspires your team
• Guides innovation efforts
• Informs criteria for evaluating competing ideas
• Is sexy and captures attention
• Is valid, insightful, actionable, unique and meaningful

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HOW MIGHT WE
A format to spark imaginations and fuel creative thinking throughout
an ideation session
How MightWe (HMW) questions are an ideal way to open up a brainstorm.The HMW
method welcomes new ideas, admits that we do not know the answer, and encourages a
collaborative approach to solving the problem. Start an Ideation session with 5-10
premade HMW questions for each problem statement.
BRAINSTORMING

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BRAINSTORMING
HOW MIGHT WE
The Formula:
How = solution-oriented
Might = encourages optimism
We = collaborative
How might we (intended action)…
to (primary user)…
so that (desired action)?

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BRAINSTORMING
HOW MIGHT WE
“How might we motivate our office mates to clean
their dishes so that we all can avoid a messy
kitchen?”
“How might we convince people to
clean up after themselves?"
“How might we pinpoint the source
of the kitchen mess?”

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Running a Brainstorm

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RUNNING A BRAINSTORM
HOWTO RUN A SESSION
Items Needed:
1. 60 minute session
2.POV or problem
statement
3. HMW questions
4. Post-it notes
5. Sharpies
6. Dry-erase markers
(or large post-it notes)
7. Camera or mobile
phone

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RUNNING A BRAINSTORM
HOWTO RUN A SESSION
Rules:
Go over the rules at the very beginning of your ideation
session
1. Defer judgement or praise
2.Go for quantity
3. Encourage wild ideas
4.Build on ideas of others
5. Stay focused on the topic
6. One (brief) conversation at a time
7. Be visual

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RUNNING A BRAINSTORM
PART ONE
Brainstorming: (45 Minutes)
• Set a timer. Begin the ideation session by presenting the POV or problem statement to the
group. if possible, leave this on screen or write it on a whiteboard for all to see.
• Introduce How MightWe questions one at a time.
• Participants use markers and post-it notes to generate ideas (answers to the HMW questions).
• Answers are read aloud and placed on the wall (or table).
• Build on the ideas.

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What are some of your
ideas?

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RUNNING A BRAINSTORM
PARTTWO
Categorizing: (15 Minutes)
• Group or categorize ideas together into themes (technology, environment, etc.)
• Prioritize or rank themes (impact, effort, complexity, price, etc.)
• Capture or collect ideas
• Discuss potential next steps
o Compile ideas electronically
o Generate word cloud from ideas
o Share with team
o Prototyping & testing

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RUNNING A BRAINSTORM
CHARACTERISTICS
The following characteristics create an open mind and fertile ground for sparking unconventional ideas.
o Dreaming and Imagining
o Experimental
o Recognize Patterns
o Curiosity
o Adaptable
o Connecting
o Disrupting
o Flipping

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Takeaways

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BRAINSTORMING
TAKEAWAYS
• True creativity thrives within constraints, not on absolutely limitless possibilities
• A well crafted Point ofView (POV) or problem statement will set the boundaries within which you can
freely explore new ideas, prepare this in advance
• How MightWe (HMW) questions provide a clear guide to keep exploration within ideation sessions
meaningful and relevant, prepare this in advance
• Document everything, and share it afterwards
• It’s not about coming up with the ‘right’ idea, it’s about generating the broadest range of possibilities

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Questions?
©2019 Hileman Group. All rights reserved.