Systematically ask for ideas along specific dimensions of a challenge. This frees up thinking by allowing participants to focus on certain aspects of a problem or certain desired characteristics of a solution, one at a time, without having to worry about compromise. The ultimate solution, which will be designed later in the creative process, might involve pieces of several brainstormed ideas.
Create dozens of ideas addressing specific aspects of a problem or specific desired characteristics of the solution.
A performance improvement team aiming to improve patient flows in a busy procedure area wanted to think creatively about improving efficiency, assuring a good patient and family experience, creating a workflow and environment that raised provider and staff satisfaction, and capturing documentation details along the way. Team meetings were getting bogged down in trying to come up with the single "perfect" solution that would address all these issues. So, they decided to have a free-wheeling, classic brainstorming session for 15 minutes. But this too bogged down the meetings as each participant spent so much time trying to describe how his or her solution would address all the issues. After 15 minutes they only had three vague and complicated ideas on flip-chart sheets. At the next meeting, the team leader explained the tool of directed brainstorming and allocated 30 minutes on the agenda. She broke the session into five-minute segments asking for at least seven ideas on each of the above aspects, taken one-at-a-time... What are your ideas for improving efficiency?...Now, what are your ideas for a great patient experience?...and so on. They ended up with over 50 ideas, several of which became pieces of the eventual solution developed in subsequent team meetings.
Teams taking part in a systemwide transformation initiative were asked to assure that their proposals would result in systemness, operational excellence, better service, and innovation. In addition to soliciting ideas in general, teams were also given a set of brainstorming questions that focused on each of these characteristics one at a time. Questions included: If we were to stop thinking of our health system as a collection of separate entities, but rather as a single entity, what opportunities for increasing effectiveness and efficiency would emerge (systemness)? What are the opportunities for simplifying or stopping altogether things that really don't matter (operational excellence)? How can we apply technology and automation more effectively (innovation)? Brainstorming topics such as these led to lively sessions and dozens of ideas generated.
Explain that nearly all innovations are collections of smaller ideas. For example, Amazon.com is the combination of an internet website, state-of-the-art inventory management, and package delivery services; each of which themselves are collections of even smaller ideas. What you will be seeking in this brainstorming session is not the one big idea that completely solves the problem and satisfies all constraints, but rather lots of individual ideas that might later be put together in a collection to form the big solution.
Explain how and why you chose to explore the various aspects and characteristics so that everyone can see how each round of brainstorming is part of the bigger picture.
Emphasize pace in each round. You are looking for at least seven ideas in five to 10 minutes. Don't get into long discussions. Just write it down and go on to the next idea.
Ask participants to write legibly and in a complete enough way that anyone reading the card can understand the idea.
There are many variations on group brainstorming. Some groups like to have everyone take a few minutes to write down ideas in silence and then share them rapidly with the rest of the group. Some like to go around the circle giving each person a chance to express one idea at a time until all ideas are exhausted. Others like to just free-wheel. It really doesn't matter too much how you do it as long as everyone is participating equally.
All methods of creative idea generation involve some combination of mental attention, escape and movement. Directed brainstorming escapes the need for premature compromise and "perfect" solution, focuses attention on specific aspects one-at-a-time, and encourages mental movement by requesting at least seven ideas in five to 10 minutes.