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Better Brainstorming: The Most Effective

Ways to Generate More Ideas
Zapier

12-15 minutes

The hero is faced with a huge—potentially insurmountable

—challenge. A random event or object sparks their creativity, and
suddenly they devise a brilliant solution to save the day.

As romantic as this narrative is, it’s also highly unrealistic. Most

of us don’t spontaneously develop genius ideas. We have to
put ourselves in the right conditions and work hard to think of
ideas.

That’s where brainstorming comes in. Brainstorming helps us

be innovative on demand—that is, when it works. It can also
quickly be a waste of time discussing random ideas. If you
want to generate great ideas, the key is to brainstorm
effectively. Here's how.

The History of Brainstorming

As central as brainstorming feels to modern work culture, it’s
actually relatively new. In 1948, advertising executive Alex
Osborn published Your Creative Power, a book with a chapter
on brainstorming or “using the brain to storm a creative
problem—and doing so in commando fashion, with each
stormer attacking the same objective,” as he defined it.
Alex Osborn's brainstorming activity conducting

Osborn said his team used this technique to generate 87 ideas

in 90 minutes. To help others take advantage of its creative
power, he outlined four primary rules:

1. No negative feedback
2. Focus on quantity over quality
3. Use others’ ideas as launchpads
4. Encourage big thinking

Brainstorming was a huge hit. It’s become one of the most

popular ways to come up with new ideas. But as anyone who’s
ever sat through endless—and unproductive—brainstorming
sessions knows, it can also be a huge waste of time.

To make sure both your independent and group brainstorming

sessions lead to novel (and useful!) ideas, experiment with
these 12 strategies both on your own and with a group.

5 Ways to Brainstorm on Your Own

Independent brainstorming may seem like an oxymoron.
However, Osborn’s own research shows it can be more
effective than group collaboration. A 1958 Yale study found
people working by themselves developed twice as many
solutions to creative puzzles as those in groups.

Try these strategies next time you’re solo and need to spark
some creativity—and perhaps give them a try before your team
brainstorming sessions, to come ready with ideas.

1. Find Word Associations

Leadership trainer Andy Kelund recommends choosing a

random noun (ideally one that’s unconnected to the focus of
your brainstorming session) and combining it with your
brainstorming focus. Use the union as a springboard for more
ideas.

Suppose you want to host an event for your customers. You

open a dictionary, flip to an arbitrary page, and see the word
“frog.” This reminds you of the frog your school photographer
used to bring to picture day to make kids smile, which inspires
you to hire professional photographers to take LinkedIn
headshots at the event.

Kelund says if the first word doesn’t work, just pick another.

Or you can use a tool like Word Association Lookup (shown

below) or Visuwords to explore word associations:
2. Use a Prompt

Just as writers use written prompts to find inspiration, you can

use prompts to think of your next brilliant idea.

Packs of creative work cards known as “method cards” were

popularized by design agency IDEO. These cards would include
different prompts to help you think, say, about the material
you'd use or the customer group you're focusing on. You can
find example decks on Method Kit, with brainstorming prompts
for projects, personal development, product developments,
startups, marketing and PR, workshop planning, personas, and
more.
Method cards are often used to spur creative thinking

You can find the original IDEO method card set on Amazon—or
you can create your own method cards from a PDF template.

Alternatively, ask a coworker to make up a prompt for you. The

best prompts are pretty abstract phrases (like “Describe your
challenge or goal to a five-year-old” or "Do the last thing first"),
so your colleague doesn’t need to be familiar with what you’re
doing.

3. Use a Visual Jumpstart

Pick an interesting image that’s somehow related to the focus

of your brainstorm. For the customer marketing event
brainstorm example, you might select a photo of customers, a
conference, or people mingling. Search Google Images for a
photo to use.

Write down everything that comes to mind when you look at

that photo: phrases, memories, and related thoughts.

Once you’ve completely exhausted your associations, review

the list and see if anything jumps out. If you can’t find an item
with obvious potential, try combining two or more thoughts.

4. Give Yourself Boundaries

It seems counterintuitive, but boundaries can make you more

creative. The fewer resources you have to work with, the more
inventive you have to be—perhaps a way to tap that superhero
gift of coming up with solutions in crisis.
To benefit from this effect, take whatever problem or
opportunity you’re trying to brainstorm for—and amp up the
difficulty.

For instance, if you have three months to create a new user

acquisition strategy, ask yourself how you’d approach the same
project if you only had one month—or a day.

Perhaps you have a $10,000 partner marketing budget.

Challenge yourself to create a plan using $5,000 or even $500.

Use the solutions you develop as a springboard for your fully-

fledged idea, or surprise your manager by hitting your goal
before the deadline or under budget.

5. Take Away Boundaries

On the flip side, giving yourself mental freedom can also help
you innovate. Try imagining you had as much of one resource
as you wanted to get the job done—whether that’s time, money,
expertise, or help from your co-workers. What would you do?

Take that idea, and scope it down.

As an example, suppose your company is opening a new

office, and you’re responsible for the PR campaign. If you had a
blank check, you might buy Snapchat Spectacles for every
attendee and turn their videos from the night into a cool promo
video.

Because you don’t have an unlimited budget, you turn this idea
into paying for a Snapchat filter, encouraging participants to
add your brand on the app and giving prizes to those who send
you Snaps.

7 Ways to Best Brainstorm as a Group

Group brainstorming can be productive—with a little structure.
Here are some of the best ways:

1. Create Diverse Teams

Rather than holding a brainstorming session with your team or

department, create a cross-functional group of people from all
different parts of your company to benefit from diverse
viewpoints and skills.

Research suggests adding new team members with current

ones will improve the quality of ideas. Northwestern
sociologist Brian Uzzi studied 474 Broadway musicals and
found those with “intermediate” levels of social intimacy were
three times more likely to do well with both critics and the
audience—as opposed to those with "high" levels of cohesion,
aka teams who always work together.

Fresh voices lets you avoid groupthink—but if a group is too

unfamiliar, people often clash. Having a range of relationships
gives you the best of both worlds.
2. Try Brainwriting

Just as how the first number you say in a negotiation tends to

influence the final outcome, the first ideas people share in a
brainstorming session affects the entire discussion.

Kellogg professor Loran Nordgren explains that sharing ideas

in groups isn't always effective. Thanks to conformity, “early
ideas tend to have disproportionate influence over the rest of
the conversation. They establish the kinds of norms, or cement
the idea of what are appropriate examples or potential
solutions for the problem.”

One solution? A process called "brainwriting." Participants write

down their ideas before or at the very beginning of the meeting,
and then come together to talk about them.

Brainwriting example from one of Zapier's team retreats

Ideally, ideas are anonymous. Consider having team members
put their ideas on Post-It notes on a wall, then ask everyone to
vote for their favorites.

Alternatively, you can use a free app like Candor. Candor sends
your question to your participants, gathers their responses, and
turns each idea into “cards” that you can use to organize your
discussions.

3. Use the 6-3-5 Method

One variation of brainwriting, the 6-3-5 method—where 6

people generate 3 ideas in 5 minute—is a simple way to
generate 108 ideas in a half hour. You need six participants
—ideally not more, as the meeting would become hard to
manage. If you only have four or five team members, this
method will still work (although you’ll have fewer ideas).

Give everyone a separate piece of paper and ask them to write

down three ideas in five minutes. Then have them pass their
paper to the right. They have another five minutes to write
down another three ideas before passing their papers to the
right again. Repeat until their paper makes its way back to
them.

It's like the game of telephone, reinvented for creative

brainstorming.

4. Brainstorm with an “Outsider”

Sometimes, all you need is a new pair of eyes looking at your

problem. Ask someone outside your company to brainstorm
with you—ideally, someone who’s in your role at a company
that’s not in your space or a direct competitor. For example, if
you work in co-marketing at an IT software company, you might
brainstorm with a co-marketing professional at a tourism
business.

Send each other your questions or prompts ahead of time (like,

“I need a name for this new product” or “I want to grow email
sign-ups by 20% this month”). Then take turns brainstorming
together in-person, over chat, or on Skype.

5. Flip your Worst Ideas

If the mood in your brainstorming session becomes negative,

don’t try to fight it. Make that energy productive with the “worst
idea” exercise.

Ask everyone to write down their craziest, most inane, least

feasible ideas. Then challenge them to somehow turn those
ideas into good ones—either by changing or adding a key
detail, or doing the opposite of what they proposed

You might end up with some fantastic suggestions. Even if you

don’t, everyone will be more productive after stretching their
minds a bit.

6. Encourage Criticism

"Debate encourages divergent thinking and enhances the

quality of thought and decisions of the group."- Charlan Nemeth

One of Osborn’s core brainstorming tenets—“no criticism”—is

misguided. Charlan Nemeth, a professor of psychology at the
University of California, Berkeley, found that groups
encouraged to debate generated 20% more ideas than those
told not to critique each other’s ideas.

Besides telling your team members to give constructive

feedback, you can harness this effect by setting up debates.
First, come up with a question or a prompt. If you’re searching
for ways to increase webinar registrations, for example, you
might ask every member of your team to prepare a creative
idea to drive registration that costs less than $1,000.

At the brainstorming meeting, then, pair your members off.

Have them debate their ideas one group at a time. You might
give the first person three minutes to explain their proposal,
four minutes for their partner to ask questions, one minute for
their partner to critique it, and two minutes for the first person
to defend it. Then ask the second person to present their
proposal.

For an added twist, tell partners to switch ideas. Not only will
this exercise force your team members to challenge their own
assumptions, it’ll also put them into problem-solving mode.

7. Share Inspiration

Brainstorming shouldn’t be an isolated event. To foster a

constant stream of ideas, create a shared file where everyone
can store their random thoughts and inspiration. That might be
a Trello board, Google Drive or Dropbox folder, Pinterest board,
or just a text file or Google Doc that everyone adds ideas to.

Ask people to mull over a specific prompt such as “Develop a

user-generated content campaign,” or find examples of a
bigger theme like “Brand awareness plays.”

You can even create a room in your team chat app for
brainstorming. This approach makes it easy to riff on each
other’s ideas; for instance, one person might link to a
noteworthy campaign, while another might comment with a
related thought three hours later.

Brainstorming isn’t typically that productive. Add some

structure, though, and you can turn a random stream of
thoughts into actionable ideas that will actually produce great
results.

Still stuck? Check out our guide on How to Generate More Good
Ideas—which recommends that you need to come up with a ton
of ideas, even bad ideas, to find the good stuff that comes to
the surface.

Have your own brainstorming tricks? We'd love to hear how you
and your team come up with great new ideas in the comments
below!

Title photo by Max Pixel. Brainstorming diagram via Spanish

Wikipedia user Gwaur. IDEO method cards photo via
andybardill. Group brainstorming photo by fsHH.