Brainstorming is perhaps the most well-known creativity tech-nique. It was pioneered by Alex Osborn in the 1950s, in his seminal book Applied Imagination (Osborn, 1953). The dictionary defines brainstorming as: ‘practising a conference technique by which a group attempts to find a solution for a specific problem by amassing all the ideas spontaneously contributed by its members’.
Osborn argued that it is possible deliberately to increase the production of good ideas by following two principles, namely the deferment of judgement and a quantity of ideas breeding quality.
The rules of brainstorming, as defined by Osborn, are as follows:
● Brainstormers are placed in an informal setting.
● Brainstormers are encouraged to run wild intellectually.
● No one should criticize anyone else’s idea.
● The more unusual or crazy the idea the better.
● The more suggestions the better.
● Ideas can be combined and recombined.
● All brainstormers’ views are sought.
● All brainstormers are of equal status.
Osborn argues that the optimum number for a brainstorming group is 12. An ideal panel should consist of a leader, an associate leader, about 5 regular (or core) members, and about 5 guests.
Overall, an odd number in the group may be useful so as to provide scope for a clear majority in any subsequent discussion.
The core members should act as pace-setters for the session. A regular change in the membership of the group is also thought useful, because the same group left together over a long period of time tends to develop a rigid pattern of thinking, with the danger that one member can anticipate the reactions of another.
Green Light thinking: brainstorming
Since Osborn first posulated his ideas for brainstorming, it has become the most common technique in creativity in the marketing services industry. However, it is not just a technique for groups; it is possible to apply the principles of brainstorming working by yourself. In any case, Osborn’s recommended number of 12 partic-ipants is difficult to recreate in most UK in-house departments or consultancies.
The advantages of Osborn’s style of brainstorming are thus:
● Time and effort arises from several people and therefore there is access to more information and skill.
● More ideas and more varied ideas are likely to be generated.
● Errors are more likely to be detected as more than one person is involved.
● By involving individual team members, brainstorming increases their commitment to any subsequent decisions.
● Brainstorming avoids the ‘tepid water syndrome’ (or what we have earlier called ‘Brown Light thinking’).
In connection with this last point, if you were to get hot and cold water out of a tap at the same time then you would end up with tepid water, and people likewise make the mistake of mixing up generating ideas with their evaluation. The two tasks should be quite distinct, and initially focusing solely on generating ideas advances the efforts to find a creative solution.
Brainstorming does, however, have disadvantages. Successful brainstorming is dependent upon having someone involved who
‘owns’ the problem, is accountable for it, wants to solve it, and has the power to do something about it. Brainstorming can also be a self-indulgent waste of time if the session tackles the wrong kind of problem or is unstructured. This latter is a point echoed by Graham Lancaster of Biss Lancaster when he said, when inter-viewed: ‘Free-ranging creative brainstorming sessions tend, on the whole, to be a bad idea. People are always poorly briefed, and just throw around sparky ideas to show off – whether on strategy or not.’ Brainstorming is not good in crisis situations where rapid decisions and clear leadership are needed. Nor is it good for clearly structured situations where there is a straightforward solu-tion. Brainstorming works best on specific and limited – but open-ended – problems.
In any group there is a tendency for some members to be
‘wall-Creativity in public relations
flowers’ and hardly make any contribution, while a number of
‘talkers’ will emerge who take up a majority of the time with their ideas and views. A tip to tackle this problem is to include a ‘pass’
technique where each participant has to take part in a round-robin.
If they cannot think of anything they say ‘pass’.
The effects of status and power come into play where there are individuals of different rank within the organization who are present in the brainstorming session. Inevitably, pressures to conform, deference and organizational politics can then influence the extent to which people take part. Despite the ground rules of
‘running wild intellectually’, what may be seen as outrageous ideas could be derided and mocked, either verbally or – just as significantly – non-verbally.
People tend to judge ideas too soon, starting to evaluate sugges-tions during the brainstorming rather than using the session solely to generate new ideas. A key skill in brainstorming is to avoid reaching a premature evaluation or a conclusion too soon; once a conclusion is reached people begin to argue the case rather than looking for new insights. Avoid Red Light thinking in brain-storming. We can all recall occasions when one person puts an idea forward that then gets ridiculed, or where someone immediately goes into Red Light thinking mode and starts analysing the prac-tical problems that they perceive as being connected to the idea.
For a brainstorming session to be successful, it is imperative that a process is established at the outset containing a definition of the task to be addressed, criteria for evaluating any ideas generated and resources and a timescale for putting these ideas and insights into action.
Brainstorming is not an end in itself. The technique throws up ideas. It doesn’t offer a systematic problem-solving sequence to creating solutions. Most sessions do not establish a clear-cut system for subsequently evaluating ideas. As a result, people complain about the ‘waste of time’, with nothing to show for their labours, apparently having expected the brainstorming session to come up with answers there and then, rather than to generate new insights for later evaluation.
Research shows that group brainstorming is not as effective as individuals working by themselves; if individuals are left to come up with ideas, they are more likely to emerge with a greater number of higher-quality ideas. Think about how many times you have read a poem written by a committee. Green Light thinking
Green Light thinking: brainstorming
techniques (described in Chapter 5) are used by individuals or small groups of people, and are generally better than storming techniques at generating new ideas. However, brain-storming has considerable value outside the arena of creativity through:
● enabling someone to overcome any personal anxieties about being creative by providing a means to involve other people, who can share the problem;
● team-building and staff development, because it provides the opportunity for members of a public relations team and different grades of staff to work together;
● acceptance of an idea by participation;
● formally putting creativity on other people’s timetables: if a group of people is ‘ordinarily’ asked to come up with ideas, only one or two tend to make a serious contribution; the others either never get around to it or only put in a half-hearted effort;
● putting creativity on the medium-term agenda. Creativity is one of those issues that does not get on the phone and say:
‘You’re not being creative and have not scheduled sufficient time to be creative; nor have you carried out a creative review over the last six months.’ As a formal technique, brainstorming helps register the need for more creativity sessions. ‘When was the last time we had a brainstorm on this one?’ is a call from the conscience that, sadly, can sometimes come too late.