Brainstorming can be of real value, provided it is used under the right conditions and for the right reasons. Tips and tricks to making the most of group collaboration.

1. | XPLANE 1OUR THINKING
BRAINSTORMING ON BRAINSTORMING
MAY 2014
By Maia Garau, Senior Consultant

2. | XPLANE 2OUR THINKING
The expectation. The reality.
BRAINSTORMING ON BRAINSTORMING
The concept of brainstorming, now mainstream in many
organizations, originated in the 1940s and has gained
momentum over the years as part of the broader trend
toward collaborative work and open-plan offices. In his book,
“How to ‘Think up’” (1942), advertising executive Alex Osborn
proposed a then-revolutionary approach for generating
creative ideas in groups. A key idea was that “it is easier to
tone down a wild idea than to think up a new one.” His core
principles included:
• Deferring judgment (we are not wired to think creatively
and critically at the same time).
• Encourage wild ideas.
• Focus on quantity, not quality.
• Build on the ideas of others.
Brainstorming has recently come under attack for yielding
mediocre creative results. Detractors argue that it’s a poor
method for generating big, innovative ideas. Some admit it
has its uses, from generating smaller, incremental ideas to
giving groups a sense of feel-good innovation to (more
sneakily) getting political buy-in for pre-existing ideas.
However it is generally argued that it falls short for two
reasons: first, because individual creativity trumps group
creativity. Second, because social dynamics often lead
people to conform and generally lean toward the safer middle
ground.

3. | XPLANE 3OUR THINKING 3
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We believe things are more nuanced. Creativity is enhanced when we don’t hold on too tightly to our ideas but give them room to
grow and evolve. This is where group collaboration really helps. We feel that brainstorming can be of real value, provided it is
used under the right conditions and for the right reasons. A good brainstorm requires:
• The right people: carefully chosen participants with the right expertise, knowledge level and attitude.
• The right preparation: participants should be given the chance to prepare, rather than coming in “cold” and being expected to
generate good ideas.
• The right facilitation: someone experienced should guide the group.
• The right culture: participants should feel they are allowed to risk, fail and be silly—all in the service of “wild ideas.” Also, people
should add to each other’s ideas rather than critique them—a good brainstorm has a “yes/and” rather than “no/but” mentality.
• The right tools: brainstorms benefit from the use of visual artifacts including Post-its and drawings.
• The right framing: brainstorming should be used at the right point in the creative process and expectations should be set
accordingly.
• The right process: a brainstorm is not a loose conversation, but rather structured system of steps and constraints.
In Gamestorming (2010), authors Dave Gray, James Macanufo and Sunni
Brown explain that effective group processes—from games to meetings to
brainstorms – have a common structure that looks like a two-pointed pencil
consisting of open-explore-close phases. Brainstorming is no exception: we
generate a large number of ideas, explore and combine them, and select
the best for further refinement.
We can think of the creative process overall as consisting of many nested
pencils.
Brainstorming would likely be just one of several processes used to
generate directions in the Open and possibly Explore phases

4. | XPLANE 4OUR THINKING 4
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XPLANE’s Amsterdam office recently ran a Visual Thinking School event* called “Brainstorming on Brainstorming” to explore and
test some key principles for effective brainstorming. Our thinking was inspired by an article written by XPLANE’s Director of
Consulting, Stephanie Gioia, titled The New Brainstorming: Six Principles to Redeem Group Ideation. We gave ourselves this
challenge: how might we increase the quality, and not just the quantity, of our ideas? Based on our research we decided to focus
on three key principles:
1. Set a clear goal.
2. Generate ideas individually.
3. Build on ideas as a group.

5. | XPLANE 5OUR THINKING 5
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Here’s what we did:
Icebreaker: We kicked off by asking people to share what they do and where they
go to feel creative.
Warm-up (this was in lieu of preparation on the topic): We split the 20
participants into two groups. Each team received a challenge that was hidden from
the other team. The first group was asked to think about what makes Amsterdam a
great city. The second group was asked to think about what makes the Olympics
great. They had three minutes to generate ideas on their topic. The rules: to
generate ideas individually, in silence and with only one idea per Post-it. Just when
they started to slow down we asked them to dig deeper and think of three more
Post-up: Both groups posted their ideas and the entire group was given time to absorb ideas about both Amsterdam and the Olympics.
Set a clear goal: Next, we gave the group the challenge of coming up with ideas to persuade the Olympic committee to host the Olympic
games in Amsterdam. Their task was to answer the question, “What would make the Olympics in Amsterdam great?”
Generate ideas individually: People had 10 minutes to generate ideas on index cards. Again, they did this individually, in silence and
with only one idea per card.
Team up: Next we formed teams of four consisting of two individuals from the Amsterdam and Olympics groups. Their task was to share,
combine and refine the ideas on their index cards and develop them into a core concept.
Share: Finally each team was asked to pitch their concept to the wider group.

6. | XPLANE 6OUR THINKING 6
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The ideas that emerged were original and often hilarious. One group proposed extreme Olympic sports based on the urban
morphology of Amsterdam (think sharks in the canals for swimming events…). Another group proposed “Open games” based on
two events: one in the Olympic compound open to athletes, another in the city center open to ordinary citizens. Another chose a
Green concept, proposing ideas for zero-footprint Games.
Would the Olympic Committee sign off on these ideas today? Of course not! But in less than two hours these teams were able to
come up with original, new concepts that could be refined and deepened in successive stages of a creative process. They had fun,
felt energized, and left the brainstorm inspired by what they had created in a short space of time.
The feedback we received was that the experimental warm-up exercise in which we split the group in two to focus on the two halves
of the challenge (Amsterdam/Olympics), to then combine their thinking, worked very well. People felt a sense of ownership of their
half of the challenge while also benefiting from a broad set of inputs for the other half. This created a sense of individual confidence
coupled with open-mindedness that made for good team thinking.
Our takeaway from this experiment is that there is a useful role for brainstorming provided it is framed in the right way and is
carefully designed and facilitated to bring out the best of both individual and group thinking.

7. | XPLANE 7OUR THINKING
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