I love brainstorming with my team. Getting those ideas out there even if we all laugh about why some are just impossible.
What brainstorming should not be: you and you only coming up with ideas for changes in your organization. While you may have awesome ideas, your view of the business is only 1 view and may or may not be biased in some way. So if you have some brainstorming to do, invite others to do it with you.
How to brainstorm:
1 - Gather your team (always great to have people from other areas, different levels, and different departments)
2 - Make sure everyone understands and agrees to the rules. Rules are:
a) Get a white board out, share your screen, and make the list you are coming up with visible to others.
b) Tell everyone NO answer will be considered wrong. You want anything and everything as ideas even if out of budget (maybe you can put it in budget next year, take a smaller idea from the out of range one, etc)
c) Tell everyone to have an open mind.
d) No one is permitted to judge anyone's responses at any time.
e) No one is permitted to talk about a response. This is a time solely to gather the ideas, not to discuss them - that comes later.
3 - Everyone gets a turn 1 at a time and no discussion on the ideas. The person keeping the notes or idea list writes each one down regardless of what it is.
4 - When everyone is out of ideas the meeting is done. Again NO discussion on the ideas right away.
5 - The person keeping the list sends it out to everyone to review.
6 - Give everyone time to add to the list. Do NOT remove any ideas.
7 - After an appropriate amount of time (a couple days), have another meeting to review each and every idea. Here's what you do:
a) Ask if anyone had anything else to add before you start to review the list.
b) Cross out (but don't remove) anything that you know is impossible and where there is no small idea that can come from it. Everyone needs to AGREE that this will be crossed off.
c) What is not crossed off now needs ranked. Have everyone rank it themselves first. Then go around the room down each and every open idea to see how many people wanted it and where it ranked.
d) Rank the top items and ensure everyone is in agreement as a majority.
e) Once you have the top ideas to work through, have the discussion on the first one. Figure out the idea in full. Create a goal and the steps needed to get to that goal. Assign someone to take it over, create a team, and commit to a due date. If the full team is not needed, then also do this for the next 2-3 items until everyone has something to work on.
8 - Review weekly where everyone is at in a quick accountability meeting. This keeps people on track to great things.
So, what great ideas does your team have you did not think of that are awesome? I bet there are a few now. Working with your team and other department team members is a great way to get a new set of eyes on a problem or challenge the company has. Working together can be transformational, so use it to your advantage.
Contact me today for any other help. tara@twinlifecoaching.ca
www.twinlifecoaching.ca
