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What’s Your Favourite Joke?
Please write your
favourite joke on a piece
of paper and put it in the
box provided
Achtung!
We’ll read some of
these out so try not
to be too offensive
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Notebooks
For the continuous assessment aspect of
this course I would like you all to get a
notebook in which to record the exercises
we do in class, and other bits
and pieces
It has to last 12 weeks so try
to get something sturdier than
a refill pad
I will ask you to hand these up
at the end of the semester for marking
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Brainstorming Topics
We will be doing some brainstorming in this
session so have a think about these topics
as we go through the lecture
– Working for a large search engine company
we have collected huge amounts of data on
peoples’ search terms – what can we do with
this data?
– Easily distributed digital music is now a fact
of life. As workers in a large music publishing
company how can we turn this to our
advantage?
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Brainstorming Topics (cont…)
– As facilitators of an M.Sc. level course in
problem solving what methods of continuous
assessment can we use to evaluate
students?
– E-mail spam is now a huge problem. As
developers in a security applications
development company what can we do to
solve this?
Problem Solving,
Communication
& Innovation:
Brainstorming
Course Website: http://www.comp.dit.ie/bmacnamee
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What Do We Know Already?
What do you know about
brainstorming already?
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Contents
In today’s lecture we will take a look at the
following
– Koinonia – ancient brainstorming
– Origins of brainstorming
– Brainstorming rules
– Warming up for brainstorming
– Practicalities of brainstorming
– Post brainstorming
– Problems with brainstorming
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Koinonia
In ancient Greece Socrates and
his contemporaries spent years
freely meeting and conversing
These dialogues helped shape
Western civilisation!
In these dialogues participants exchanged
ideas freely without bitter argument
This was done through the spirit of Koinonia
which means spirit of fellowship
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Principles of Koinonia
Koinonia binds participants together through
the following principles:
– Establish dialogue
• The Greek origin of the word dialogue means
talking through
• On the other hand the Latin origin of the word
discussion means dash to pieces
– Be collegial
• Everybody is equal
• Everybody’s ideas are equal
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Principles of Koinonia (cont…)
– Clarify your thinking
• Suspend all assumptions – about ideas and about
people
– Be honest
• Never hold back information
• The notion of collective intelligence
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Relative Koinonia
The physics giants Einstein,
Heisenberg, Pauli and Bohr did the
same thing
For years they exchanged and
dialogued about ideas which later
became the foundations of modern
physics
Most physicists of the time argued over
petty nuances of opinion and promoted
their own ideas at the expense of others
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The Geese And The V
Why do geese fly in a V?
– As each goose flaps its wings it creates an
uplift for the bird immediately behind it
– The V formation adds at least 70% greater
flying range than if each bird flew alone
Working together is a good idea!
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Brainstorming
Brainstorming (formalised in the early
1940s) carries on the spirit of Koinonia
Brainstorming is a group technique for
generating ideas in order to solve a problem
It is not a full problem solving system, but
can be a part of many such systems
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Alex Osborne – Father of Brainstorming
Alex F. Osborne was, amongst
other things, an advertising
executive in Buffalo, New York in
the 1930s/1940s for the BBDO
company
Also a lecturer and writer on imagination and
creative thinking
“"It is easier to tone down a wild idea than to
think up a new one."- Alex Osborne
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Origins of Brainstorming
While working for the advertising company
BBDO, Osborne felt that conventional
business meetings inhibited the creation of
new ideas
He proposed some rules designed to help
stimulate idea creation in meetings:
– No criticism of ideas
– Go for large quantities of ideas
– Build on each other’s ideas
– Encourage wild and exaggerated ideas
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Origins of Brainstorming (cont…)
To think up was originally
the term Osborne used to
describe the process but
in time it came to be
known as brainstorming –
using the brain to storm a problem
“A conference technique by which a group
attempts to find a solution for a specific
problem by amassing all the ideas
spontaneously by its members”- Alex Osborn
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Origins of Brainstorming (cont…)
The rules of brainstorming give people
freedom from the inhibitions, nervousness
and other negative feelings which usually
accompany meetings
Surprisingly, it has been found that quantity
of ideas usually produces quality of ideas
Quantity
Quality
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What Is Brainstorming Used For?
Brainstorming has been used to develop the
following:
– Advertising campaigns
– Marketing strategy and methods
– Research and development procedures
– Physical products
– Written documents and articles
– Government policies
– Investment decisions
– New industries
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Brainstorming Rules
We will use a slightly altered set of
Osborne’s original brainstorming rules:
– No judgement of ideas
– Go for large quantities of ideas
– Build on each other’s ideas
– Encourage wild and exaggerated ideas
– Every person and every idea is equal
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Brainstorming Rules (cont…)
No Judgement Of Ideas
Don’t say anything about ideas – neither
complement nor criticise
There is no such thing as a bad idea!
Even seemingly stupid ideas can spark off
really good ones
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Brainstorming Rules (cont…)
Go For Large Quantities Of Ideas
The more ideas at this stage the better
Keep ideas short – forget about details, just
capture the essence
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Brainstorming Rules (cont…)
Build On Each Other’s Ideas
Turn “yes, but…” into “yes, and…”
Try to add extra thoughts to each idea (be
careful not to comment though)
Maybe combine several suggested ideas to
generate a new one
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Brainstorming Rules (cont…)
Encourage Wild And Exaggerated Ideas
No idea is too ridiculous
Wild ideas often spark really practical ones
Exaggerate ideas to the extreme
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Brainstorming Rules (cont…)
Every Person And Every Idea Is Equal
Everybody’s perspective is unique and so is
useful
Nobody owns their ideas once they are out
on the table
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Which Problems To Brainstorm About?
Brainstorming is not ideal for all problems
Remember the purpose of brainstorming is
to generate ideas – nothing else
Use it for problems for which you need a lot
of ideas
– New product development
– New market discovery
– Others?
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Running A Brainstorming Session
Brainstorming sessions have three phases:
– Warm-up
– Brainstorming
– Post-brainstorming work
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Warming Up For Brainstorming
Before tackling the main problem in question
a warm-up should be used to relax people
and get creative juices flowing
Some suggestions are:
– One + One = One
– Walking in someone else’s shoes
– Are you a hammer or a nail?
– Impossible hybrids
– Brainstorm about unrelated tasks
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One + One = One
Sometimes two disjoint concepts when put
together form a readily understandable third
concept
– “Conference call”, “home page”, “party girl”,
“religious right”
Have everybody think up a word with the
same first letter as their last name
Participants each paste their word to the their
forehead and mingle freely in the room trying
to create something new out of their word
combined with other participants’ words
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Walking In Someone Else’s Shoes
Ask all participants to take off their shoes
and put them on the table in front of them
Allow everybody to look at each other shoes
Have people swap shoes – try them on
Have a competition to build the tallest shoe
structure possible
The artificial uncomfortableness of this
situation can help to break down
nervousness and bond a team
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Are You A Hammer Or A Nail?
Go around the room asking each person to
describe themselves as either an X or a Y
For example:
– Are you a hammer or a nail?
– Are you a cloud or a rock?
– At work are you a tree or the wind?
– At meetings are you a handshake or a
sandwich?
– At home are you a rug or a toaster?
The more bizarre the pairings the better
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Impossible Hybrids
Pick random words from a collection and
combine them to form impossible hybrids
using
“An X that is also a Y ”
For example:
– A piece of furniture that is also a fruit
– A lampshade that is a book
– A food that is also a rock
Try to describe each hybrid – maybe even
draw pictures of them
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Crossbreeding
Provide four boxes containing slips of paper
with random names of plants, objects,
animals and job descriptions
Ask participants to draw slips and then make
hybrids out of them
For example:
– Bird + Supervisor
– Paperwork + Key
– Customer + Door
– Pony + Photocopier
Try to describe what each hybrid would look
like or do
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Brainstorming About Unrelated Tasks
Simply brainstorm about tasks unrelated to
the main focus of the session
Nice general examples include:
– How can we improve shoes?
– How can we combat the problems of graffiti?
– What if everybody had two thumbs – how
would that change the world?
– What if we had no cars?
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Practicalities Of Brainstorming
The following is a list of the practical points to
keep in mind when running a brain-storming
session:
– A a central person (the facilitator) will
coordinate the proceedings, introduce the
purpose of the brainstorming session and
outline the rules
– Try to ensure everyone is familiar with the
problem to be discussed before the session
– Gather a group of between four and ten people
together in one room
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Practicalities Of Brainstorming (cont…)
– Arrange participants around a circular table
– Have plenty of easily accessible pens, paper…
– Ensure everybody is familiar with the rules put them on posters on the walls of the room
– Try to have one person record all ideas, but
participants should also record ideas to ensure
nothing is lost
– Perform some warm-up exercises to relax
participants and get the energy flowing
– Open the session proper by asking for as
many ideas and suggestions as possible
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Practicalities Of Brainstorming (cont…)
– When the session hits natural lulls try to
spark it again by suggesting people throw out
outlandish ideas or build on an existing idea
– Don’t be afraid to take breaks
– Eventually the session will fizzle out of its
own accord – try not to force sessions to last
longer than it should
– When the session comes to a close thank
everybody for taking part
– Gather up the notes of all participants – these
belong to the session
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Post-Brainstorming Work
The purpose of brainstorming is to generate
ideas to solve a particular problem
What should you do with all of these ideas?
An easy scheme is to arrange ideas into
three lists
Excellent
Interesting
Useless
Definitely will work
and can be easily
implemented
Will possibly work
require further
analysis/
investigation
Will not work
The next step is to implement the excellent
ideas and investigate the interesting ones
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When Brainstorming Goes Bad
Brainstorming can go wrong
Some common problems are:
– People fail to follow the rules
• Have the facilitators enforce
the rules
– People do not come up with
a good flow of ideas
• Facilitators should prompt participants with
questions, springboard ideas etc
• Try using simple creative techniques within
brainstorming
• Ensure to warm up fully
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When Brainstorming Goes Bad (cont…)
– Nothing appears to happen after
brainstorming
• Bad managers use brainstorming to pretend
• Make sure to follow up brainstorming
– Brainstorming is unfocused
• Try to brainstorm about specific problems
• Facilitators should try to keep the session on track
The most difficult part of brainstorming is
creating the correct atmosphere
Don’t be afraid to try creative things like
playing music, brainstorming outside etc
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Summary
The purpose of brainstorming is to generate
new ideas around a problem
The brainstorming rules are:
– No judgement of ideas
– Go for large quantities of ideas
– Build on each other’s ideas
– Encourage wild and exaggerated ideas
– Every person and every idea is equal
Brainstorming should follow three phases
warm-up | brainstorm | post-brainstorm
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Let’s Give It A Try
We will try a brain storming session about
one of the following topics
– Working for a large search engine company
we have collected huge amounts of data on
peoples’ search terms – what can we do with
this data?
– Easily distributed digital music is now a fact
of life. As workers in a large music publishing
company how can we turn this to our
advantage?
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Let’s Give It A Try (cont…)
– As facilitators of an M.Sc. level course in
problem solving what methods of continuous
assessment can we use to evaluate
students?
– E-mail spam is now a huge problem. As
developers in a security applications
development company what can we do to
solve this?
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Process
Warm-ups
– Jokes
– Are you a hammer or a nail?
Brainstorm
Post-brainstorm work
– Organise ideas
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So?
What did you think of it?
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No Judgement Of Ideas
Go For Large Quantities Of Ideas
Build On Each Other’s Ideas
Encourage Wild And Exaggerated Ideas
Every Person And Every Idea Is Equal
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Clarify Your Thinking