The Latest Brainstorming Techniques That You Can Start Using Today

Almost every great plan starts with a quality brainstorming session.

Whether you’re sitting in the boardroom with coworkers or at home trying to come up with content ideas, brainstorming is an important part of the process. If you’re finding it difficult to come up with quality ideas, then it might be time to change how you brainstorm.

In this post, we’re going to discuss some of the best brainstorming techniques out there right now. It’s not just about coming up with ideas, it’s about structuring ideas and making them useful. Keep reading and you’ll be able to commit your ideas to paper and turn them into useful strategies moving forward.

Brainwriting

Brainwriting is one of the most popular brainstorming strategies for small businesses and corporations alike. If you’ve got a team of people in a boardroom, have everyone take a few minutes to write down 3-5 ideas relating to the brainstorming topic.

Once that part is complete, everyone passes their ideas to the right or left, where they’re built upon with further bullet points. Do this until the ideas make it all the way around the table.

Rapid Ideation

Sometimes the first ideas you have on a topic are the best ones. With rapid ideation, the team members have a set amount of time to write down as many ideas as they can think up. When the time is up, you can pick apart the ideas as a group.

This is an effective method for brainstorming ideas because we often dismiss ideas before they have enough time to gestate. Rapid ideation prevents the hasty dismissal of good ideas.

Round Robin

In the same vein as rapid ideation is round-robin brainstorming. Here, a group of people will take turns contributing a single idea to the brainstorming until everyone’s given one. The rule is that no one can elaborate on, criticize, or discuss any of the ideas until everyone’s contributed one.

This helps to involve every member of the brainstorming session. When everyone’s said their piece, you can start structuring ideas as you all see fit. To avoid people having the same idea, give them a bit of time to think up ideas before the session.

Solo Brainstorming Techniques

If you work on your own or you’re doing something creative, you’ll need to have solo brainstorming sessions every now and then. While the group is a huge aspect of a brainstorming session, there are some things you can do to cultivate your smart mind and come up with worthwhile ideas.

One is to write out initial ideas with a brainstorming template (click here), then go for a walk. With your ideas in mind and nowhere to be, you can just walk and think. You’ll be stunned at how a lack of distraction can help you flesh out ideas.

Another good solo technique is to think about someone you admire and imagine how they’d approach your problem. It could be someone you work with or some famous person – it’s just to give you a fresh perspective on an idea.

Let Your Ideas Flow

These are a few helpful brainstorming techniques that you can try. It’s important to go into a brainstorming session with the mindset that there are no bad ideas. Brainstorming is all about throwing everything at the wall and finding out what sticks, so bring these techniques into your next meeting and see what happens.

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