I've provided creativity consultation and participated in or moderated quite a few brainstorm sessions since 1992. Here's what I've discovered:
- Just as a good karaoke bar has a host, a moderator/facilitator helps tremendously in brainstorming by making it okay to speak up, offering questions that ideas might answer, and capturing ideas. - Set the rules out early, and make it clear that nothing is censored. Because you don't see how the idea will work with current infrastructure/whatever, does not mean someone else won't think of a workaround. Even if the idea is not used, it may provide a springboard for another idea. - Anyone can be present as long as they are not repressive of creativity. You should avoid having "watchers" who are obvious observers. If someone wants to come in and observe, fine, but they must also participate in some way, or they might have a repressive effect on the team members, which may feel as if they are being graded in some way. - Capture items live, but *not* as a bullet list on a white board. My favorite method is to work with a projector and have the moderator/facilitator capture everything on the fly in Visio's brainstorming template (or any application you find meets the need, Visio has simply been most convenient, most frequently in the workplace for me). This allows you to move items around, draw connections between disparate ideas, make notes regarding different concepts, etc. You immediately get away from the linear. Tracking in Visio worked in a phone/web meeting context once, too, gluing together departments in Toronto, Dallas, and Plano. Everyone could see and hear what was happening, and we were used to that kind of meeting. - Paper and whiteboard will work if they are large enough, and if you start off not writing a bulleted list. - If you already know what you're working with, a large table and a lot of index cards can be invaluable. For example, to brainstorm a flexible taxonomy that engineering, marketing, sales, and various product depts. could all agree on for a personalized site, I printed several sets of "business cards" that each had one of the possible values/attributes printed on it (plus a few blank ones). Then I got the business owners and SMEs into one room with a very big table. By the end of the afternoon we had the rough outline of an excellent faceted taxonomy. - I try to work with not more than a dozen, not less than five. Too few and people get shy; too many and people think they won't be heard. But with the right group of creative souls, these limits can be broken :-) - Someone within the dept. is fine if they know what they're doing -- otherwise turn to an outside facilitator. Sometimes both a facilitator and a scribe are useful - one person moderating, and another capturing data. All depends on what your options are. - I don't think brainstorming should be less than an hour or more than three. A couple of hours is usually enough to explain the situation, get things started. snowball ideas off of other ideas, and possibly prioritize/determine next steps. All day can result in burnout - unless you are working on a large project and chunk out the brainstorming sessions into targeted areas. Hope this is helpful! Alex O'Neal UX manager -- The best time to plant a tree is twenty years ago. The next best time is now. ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
