Brainstorming Redefined: 7 Steps to Questions-based Brainstorming

Editor's Note: Take a look at our featured best practice, Structured Problem Solving & Hypothesis Generation (34-slide PowerPoint presentation). This training PPT presentation provides a comprehensive approach to structured problem solving, starting with the identification of whether a problem or opportunity exists. It guides you through pinpointing the exact location of the issue, understanding its root causes, and exploring potential [read more]

* * * *

Creative ideas—such as Innovation, Process Improvement initiatives, or Growth Strategy opportunities—drive businesses.  It’s every executive’s dream to manage a team that is creative enough to come up with innovative ideas perpetually.  Traditional brainstorming is the conventional method utilized by teams to generate new ideas globally.

The conventional brainstorming sessions, however, often falls short of generating innovative ideas.  These stints are typically unstructured, attended passively by a group of people trying to pay attention to a moderator who requests the team to think outside the box.  The participants, mainly, remain quiet during the workshop, while a few take control of the session with their mundane ideas.  They believe the sessions take up their precious time, and yearn to get back to their routine work.  The few ideas generated during the workshop are seldom put to test after the session.

A more pragmatic and productive approach to idea generation commences by developing and asking intelligent questions from the participants.  The Question-based Brainstorming approach necessitates more planning and organization than traditional brainstorming, but delivers better ideas for effective business problem solving and tackling various business situations.

This practical, question-based approach to brainstorming entails 7 key steps:

1. Understand the Organization’s Decision Making Criteria
2. Ask the Right Questions
3. Pick People Who Can Answer the Questions
4. Hold Focused Idea Generation Sessions
5. Set the Brainstorming Expectations
6. Have Subgroups Determine Their Leading Ideas
7. Follow up Quickly

Let’s take a deeper dive into the first 3 steps to brainstorming.

Understand the Organization’s Decision Making Criteria

The first step to effective brainstorming entails acquiring a thorough understanding of the organization’s decision making criteria.  Most organizations are too rigid and afraid of trying out new insights and ideas.  They trust that their existing policies and procedures must be strictly adhered to no matter what.  Thus any creative ideas if generated go largely unimplemented.

Senior executives aiming to trigger innovative ideas in their people need to comprehend, quantitatively outline, and possibly influence the criteria their organizations utilize to make decisions about the ideas developed.  The team needs to know the limitations that should not be surpassed before engaging into any brainstorming sessions.

Ask the Right Questions

Traditional brainstorming focuses on the quantity of ideas; the more the better.  A more structured approach to idea generation exploits organized probing to generate insightful viewpoints.  The senior managers generate a string of carefully constructed questions, which should then be rigorously analyzed by the participants in small groups during a series of idea generation sessions.  The probing should make the respondents think in new ways, control the thought dimensions that the team will analyze, yet it should not restrict the attendees to specific answers.

Pick People Who Can Answer the Questions

Traditional brainstorming sessions select workshop attendees based on their ranks in the hierarchy, and not because of their valuable insights.  However, leaders aiming to inspiring creative brainstorming should choose workshop participants who possess deep “hands-on” knowledge on the subject, and have the ability to express themselves clearly.

Interested in learning more about the other steps to Brainstorming?  You can learn more and download an editable PowerPoint on the 7 Steps to Brainstorming here on the Flevy documents marketplace.

Do You Find Value in This Framework?

You can download in-depth presentations on this and hundreds of similar business frameworks from the FlevyPro Library. FlevyPro is trusted and utilized by 1000s of management consultants and corporate executives. Here’s what some have to say:

“My FlevyPro subscription provides me with the most popular frameworks and decks in demand in today’s market. They not only augment my existing consulting and coaching offerings and delivery, but also keep me abreast of the latest trends, inspire new products and service offerings for my practice, and educate me in a fraction of the time and money of other solutions. I strongly recommend FlevyPro to any consultant serious about success.”

– Bill Branson, Founder at Strategic Business Architects

“As a niche strategic consulting firm, Flevy and FlevyPro frameworks and documents are an on-going reference to help us structure our findings and recommendations to our clients as well as improve their clarity, strength, and visual power. For us, it is an invaluable resource to increase our impact and value.”

– David Coloma, Consulting Area Manager at Cynertia Consulting

“As a small business owner, the resource material available from FlevyPro has proven to be invaluable. The ability to search for material on demand based our project events and client requirements was great for me and proved very beneficial to my clients. Importantly, being able to easily edit and tailor the material for specific purposes helped us to make presentations, knowledge sharing, and toolkit development, which formed part of the overall program collateral. While FlevyPro contains resource material that any consultancy, project or delivery firm must have, it is an essential part of a small firm or independent consultant’s toolbox.”

– Michael Duff, Managing Director at Change Strategy (UK)

“FlevyPro has been a brilliant resource for me, as an independent growth consultant, to access a vast knowledge bank of presentations to support my work with clients. In terms of RoI, the value I received from the very first presentation I downloaded paid for my subscription many times over! The quality of the decks available allows me to punch way above my weight – it’s like having the resources of a Big 4 consultancy at your fingertips at a microscopic fraction of the overhead.”

– Roderick Cameron, Founding Partner at SGFE Ltd

“Several times a month, I browse FlevyPro for presentations relevant to the job challenge I have (I am a consultant). When the subject requires it, I explore further and buy from the Flevy Marketplace. On all occasions, I read them, analyze them. I take the most relevant and applicable ideas for my work; and, of course, all this translates to my and my clients’ benefits.”

– Omar Hernán Montes Parra, CEO at Quantum SFE