Brainstorming is the most popular creative thinking tool.
Yet it remains a paradox, popular, fun, social yet for many people ineffective.
Here are 8 ways to improve your brainstorming results using our Ideas Blitz tool.
1. Ideas Blitz increases the quantity of different ideas.
Send the challenge out beforehand and have everyone run their own Blitz and bring their best ideas along.
Because Blitz only takes a few minutes you can ask people to run one and bring along their best ideas.
If you have say 10 people you start the session with 20 to 30 ideas!
More ideas means that you increase your chances of developing higher quality ones.
2. Blitz ensures that everyone has a voice.
One of the problems with brainstorming is production blocking i.e. the idea that everyone must wait their turn to speak (leads to cognitive overload).
With Blitz everyone creates their own ideas to start with free from a dominant person or dominant idea.
3. Blitz can capture ideas immediately
Another frustration with brainstorming is that some unlucky person has to type up the results.
This is time-consuming and often slows down momentum.
With Blitz Mobile you can capture ideas immediately and send them out the moment the session ends.
4. Blitz ensures that your brainstorming sessions are quicker
Everyone is time-poor. By using Blitz either at the beginning or during the brainstorming session will accelerate your ideas and mean that you will get a better result on half the time.
5. Blitz means that people from different locations can participate.
Because Blitz is an online tool it means that anyone from anywhere in the world can participate.
It could be other companies, cultures, partners, customers or suppliers — the end result is a greater diversity of voices in the room.
6. Blitz Mobile has inbuilt stimulus material
Sometime people just get stuck in a familiar pattern and need new stimulus.
Blitz has this already built in e.g. it could be an unrelated image that just kick-starts your creative energy again.
7. Blitz has a 5 step semi-structured process
One of the features of Ideas Blitz that many people like is that there is a 5 step process.
Rather than just saying to people go in the corner and be creative which sounds positive but is not helpful, Blitz outlines a semi-structured process that more linear and rational people can appreciate.
8. Blitz ends in an action plan
Another frustrating aspect of brainstorming is that the session is often left up in the air with people not knowing what the next steps are or who is responsible.
Blitz by comparison has as its last step Action — there is an inbuilt feature that allows you to develop an action plan.
In summary:
Brainstorming is a powerful tool.
But in a time-poor, fast-moving world it needs a little help.
Much like golfers today with their amazing titanium clubs can send a golf ball travelling immense distances, contemporary managers, leaders and students need new tools to enhance and accelerate their results.