How to Brainstorm Productively with Your Team

In working culture, brainstorming is when you gather together with all members of your team to discuss ideas or to solve a problem.

During this session, everyone is involved in giving suggestions or ideas, either with what they’re prepared before or oftentimes, spontaneously. Brainstorm is not just about finding a solution to a problem, it also trains our brain to actively look for new ideas and formulate it to be something more concrete.

In some cases, maybe brainstorm session is all you do all day! It will depend on the importance of your discussion as well as the seriousness of your problem. One thing to remember is to not let a brainstorm take over your entire day and make you delay your work. How does one do that? Here’s some useful tips that you can apply so you can brainstorm productively with your team:

• Define the goal

The goal is to find a solution to a problem (sometimes several). So decide beforehand, what is the problem? What’s the ideal solution that will benefit the team or the company? How are we going to make that happen? These questions will help you have a clear direction when you’re brainstorming, as well as minimizing trivial things that will steer you out of topic.

• Prepare your ideas

Ideally it would be better if you plan ahead before a brainstorming session, so your team can prepare their ideas and input. It can also help speed things up as everyone is prepared and can come up with their ideas and solutions. It’s never a good thing when you hear crickets too long during a brainstorming session.

• The less the better

Our next tip is to not involve too many people. Try to include just the core team that will have impact directly in the session. Too many people in a session may cause a chaotic discussion that is not productive, it may also create a forum within a forum, everything overlaps. So before you plan a discussion, make sure that everyone will have a collaborative and productive input during the session.

Read also: Pentingnya Teamwork dan Kolaborasi

• Conducive atmosphere 

Create a conducive atmosphere throughout your brainstorming session. It means giving your team a safe space to convey and present their ideas. Remember that there’s no right or wrong ideas, so don’t reject an idea right away. To have a clear direction, ideally, one person who leads should decide which ideas will go, which one won’t. Everyone chose one person to make a decision, as well as for the final one. 

• Understanding the techniques

Understand that even in brainstorming there’s some techniques that you can do to manage the session. From brainwriting technique, where each person writes up their ideas. Then there’s Starbursting, which challenges everyone to ask as many questions as possible to ensure that all of the relevant aspects have been considered before any work begins on implementing solutions. 

Another one is Round Robin Brainstorming, in which all members of the team gather in a circle and give out their ideas. Last but not least there’s Figure Storming where you imagine other people that’s not in the room (could be a leader, fictional character, famous figures, etc.) would approach a problem or think about a solution.

• The right time, the right place

There’s a place and time for everything and so does brainstorming! Choose the right time when your team is available and make sure it doesn’t disturb their daily work. Choosing the right time and place ensures your team’s focus and productivity. Next, it’s time to choose a meeting room or office space that will support your productive brainstorming session. 

Luckily, GoWork’s fully-equipped meeting rooms are accessible all over the town. You can find an ideal space that’s thoughtfully designed complete with state of the art technologies for you and the team to brainstorm your ideas. Find out more about our meeting room plans here. Alternatively, just fill in the forms below and we’ll reach out to you!