Remember: as people and teams are unique, there is no single ideal technique.
Try to brainstorm questions, not answers
Especially when your brainstorming session hits a dead end, you can inspire participants again by encouraging them to ask questions that frame the issues. This is switching the focus to generating novel perspectives.
If everybody is sitting around uninspired, the possibility of such brainstorming questions will reinforce the sense of control. Confidence is boosted and the session starts moving again.
Finishing and honing ideas
Your task is to generate as many ideas as possible within the time constraints. Any discussions or criticisms during the brainstorming session are undesirable.
The ideas you assemble still need to be finished, the outline sketches turned into more complete pictures. This can be done using either attention guidance or discussion encouragement.
- Attention guidance means gathering the participants and directing their attention towards a specific task. In other words, the leader controls the direction in which the conversation develops. This helps everyone to process the information at a deeper level.
- Discussion encouragement is less structured. Participants simply sit down with a list of ideas and discuss them. The direction of the conversation is not controlled by anyone. This approach helps to clarify and synthesise specific ideas from the generated list.
In both instances the underlying idea is the same: you simply give participants an opportunity to keep the process going. This is the conclusion of an article at business2community.com.
-jk-