How To Run a Brainstorming Meeting
The goal of a brainstorming meeting is to tap into the collective knowledge and subconscious of a group to discover or reveal ideas and connections around a particular topic.
You don’t want these meetings to be over-thought or over-discussed. You want a rapid interchange of ideas. You want to whip up a creative storm in that conference room. You want there to be lightning, thunder, and gales. That’s why it’s called a brain-storm and not a brain-calm (though, there are times when this works (more in a future post)). When you run — or literally conduct — these meetings, it’s your responsibility to keep ideas flying around the room. You can sense when someone has a thought. Call on them, especially if they don’t usually participate. When you’re doing this right, you’ll watch ideas blossom.
Momentum is key. When people are thinking quickly, they aren’t self-conscious. When the discussion is animated, people feel free to express their true thoughts and opinions and are able to find new connections between ideas from others.
The Mechanics
The very best way to run a brainstorming meeting is with a projector, transparencies, and fine-tipped markers. You can write much more quickly in a smaller area then you can on a whiteboard. You can rapidly switch between transparencies. You can show previous transparencies if necessary. The results of the brainstorm are projected and literally spotlighted. Unfortunately, this isn’t a very green technique. Plus, most organizations don’t have these lo-tech overhead projectors anymore.
There are numerous software packages that can support brainstorming, but don’t use them. They tend to result in one person typing and mousing around while everyone watches them. They promote calm not frenzy.
Instead, use a whiteboard (ideally, multiple whiteboards) and have someone ready with a digital camera. Move. Gesture. Draw. Perform. Bring the energy you want to see from the participants.
Don’t use a list to brainstorm. This kills branching and wild leaps between ideas. It restricts discussion and inhibits the flow of ideas. Capture brainstorms using mindmaps. Invent your own mindmap conventions if you like, but use them consistently (at least during each brainstorming session). Write ideas in bubbles. Draw lines between related ideas. Start with a central idea in its own special bubble and branch out from there. Write ideas in between other ideas. Don’t worry about how it looks.
If an idea starts spawning another discussion make a quick call as to whether this is a distraction or relevant. If it’s not relevant ask the person to jot down their thought for a future discussion and put a little dot next to the idea. If the idea is worth exploring, draw another circle around the idea and start a “substorm”.
A substorm is a separate brainstorm related to the central topic. It has its own central topic and related ideas. If possible start drawing this on a separate whiteboard. If there’s no room, have someone take a picture of what you have and erase enough material to get the substorm to fit. Don’t erase the whole board, just create enough space to start.
When there are connections between ideas, draw lines between them. Put a note on the connection to capture the relationship if that makes sense.
Keep ideas moving. Cut people off when they start to go into too much detail on an idea. Keep drawing . When a thread starts to peter out, literally jump back to another part of the mindmap. Keep the energy level high, but keep an eye on the clock.
When you have about 5 minutes left. Start bringing the energy level down. Take a seat. Jot down any final thoughts, take pictures of the whiteboards, thank people for participating, and tell them that you’ll send something around in the next day or two for them to review.
Synthesize and Analyze after it’s Over
Don’t do this during the meeting. If you start trying to organize thoughts, the group’s energy will fall off. If you stop directing the storm, things will become still. The time to do this is after the meeting is over.
Set aside some time immediately after the meeting to synthesize everyone’s ideas. If you wait a few hours (or worse, until the next day), you won’t remember the details between the bubbles you drew or the points people raised as you were writing them down.
Start with the central idea at the top of a text/outline document. Type in the ideas and start grouping them in a way that starts making logical sense. If there are side connections between ideas, frame them in the context of the outline. You’re bringing order out of chaos, applying your insight and interpretation.
Once you’ve finished synthesizing the results of the brainstorm, you can start analyzing the major themes and ideas. A great technique for doing this is putting a presentation together using Powerpoint or Keynote. Because presentations are linear in nature, they force you to lay your thoughts out logically. They’re a great way to organize and express the results of a brainstorm. Of course, it takes some thought and practice to use presentation software well. We’ll pick this up in an upcoming post.
UPDATED: The post on Braincalm is up.
