Anecdote: Eight Rules to Brilliant Brainstorming

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16/09/06 |

Eight Rules to Brilliant Brainstorming

By Shawn Callahan. Follow me on Twitter. Filed in .

Andrew Hargadon and Bob Sutton did some research on brainstorming in the 90’s that has been written up in BusinessWeek recently. Bob says it’s a good representation of their work. For each heading I’ve included here there is a paragraph of detail in the BusinessWeek article.

Use brainstorming to combine and extend ideas, not just harvest them
Don’t bother if people live in fear
Do individual brainstorming before and after group sessions
Brainstorming sessions are worthless unless ideas lead to action
Brainstorming requires skill and experience both to do—and especially—to facilitate
Brainstorming requires skill and experience both to do—and especially—to facilitate
Brainstorming sessions can be used for more than just generating ideas
Follow the rules, or don’t call it a brainstorm

The other article BusinessWeek ran is called The Truth about Brainstorming. Bob Sutton has a go at most academic research on brainstorming suggesting that it rarely reflects what really happens in the workplace and the idea that individual brainstorming if more effective that group efforts is nonsense.

[via Bob Sutton]

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