Brainstorming Templates & Diagrams for Presentations

The idea was formally developed by Alex Osborn in his book Applied Imagination. There have been many modifications in the original idea and some studies worked around formalization of the practice but the initial essence continues to be the same.

The most diffused approach of the problem solving practice consists of an informal meeting based on lateral thinking. It promotes the flow of ideas and free thoughts that can, at first, be disconnected, that then will be joined to create creative solutions to the problem into discussion. This unstructured approach helps the people involved to get outsides its own contextual boundaries and include unthinking terms into their own reasoning paths.

The involved stakeholders need to avoid criticizing or promoting ideas of others. They need to invest all their cognitive effort in generating ideas of their own thinking without the pressure of being judged.

Ideas shortlisted at the end of the session and finally evaluated.

This technique is ideal for groups of people where group behavior impacts negatively during traditional problem solving practices. This scenario is a pattern within corporate environments or highly structured hierarchical organizations. This can limit the generation of creative ideas.

Brainstorming is applied to generate an open environment encouraging the people in the group to participate and let creativity flow without restrictions. Every can, or cannot, contribute with their own voice and opinion.

The steps for hosting a brainstorming sessions are quite simple. In this description we are not being as formal as the original technique, but for taking a first intent and trying the practice will be enough.

1. Initial Setup – Group and Environment : Before the meeting, make sure to find a comfortable environment for every stakeholder. The group of people should be diverse and heterogeneous. This will help different minded approaches. Make sure to warm up the team though ice breaking, so everyone knows who each other is.
2. Present the Problem into Discussion: Describe the problem you wan to solve, its current states, its impact and how you overcome its results at the present time.
3. Guide the Ideas Flow:  Every stakeholder will generate its ideas and the moderator can start allocating time to each of them to share their thoughts to the team. The team needs to generate a good number of ideas to discuss.
4. Short List: The moderator will list and the team will short list the ideas generated
5. Conclusion: Finally, each shortlisted idea will be analyzed and discussed in order to understand its applicability and probability of success.