You never know when a small idea will morph into a big one so love them all.
— Seth Godin
Almost all teams I have seen practice some sort of brainstorming but I am surprised that most of them aren’t aware of the brainwriting technique.
Brainstorming or Not
So it’s Tuesday morning and you are facilitating a meeting with your team to explore ideas for solving a recurring problem. As you write the ideas on a white board, you notice that most of the ideas are coming from one or two members on the team of ten. As the meeting progresses, the same members continue to dominate the conversation. You nudge others to chime in but no one speaks up. You are wondering if others don’t have ideas or just holding back. Finally it hits you when someone tries to chime in with an idea but it gets shut down. You think this may be the reason why others are reluctant to participate. I am sure you have seen this scenario before so what’s the alternative?
In one word: Brainwriting
He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me.
— Thomas Jefferson
The next time you decide to try something different. This technique you have heard about called Brainwriting. There is no shortage of ideas this time and there is no holding back. Lot of ideas are flowing and everyone seems engaged and contributing to the team’s “idea bank”. Everyone is building on others’ ideas and the team is converging on identifying a solution that might actually solve the problem.
Think, Organize, Decide
Brainwriting is a technique that has been around since the 60's. It is a technique that is used to solicit quick and rapid ideas from a group leveraging the wisdom of the crowds.
The essence of brainwriting is to give everyone time to think and write their own ideas quietly - sometimes also referred to as quiet writing rather than verbally shouting them out to a facilitator. Once the allotted time is up, the ideas are collected and the team look at their collective intelligence radiating from the post-it notes on the wall or placed on a flip chart. The ideas are then organized based on similarities and the team decides on next steps.
So, here’s a quick outline to jump start your next brainwriting session:
- Think: Quiet writing (everyone gets to think and write quietly using post-it notes)
Tip: Ask participants to write one idea per post-it note (This will help in organizing and grouping the ideas) - Organize: Ideas are collected and displayed on a wall or a flip chart, group them by a theme (For example: quick wins, medium and long term goals or research, validate and experiment, etc.)
- Decide: Team picks the group that is most important to them and identify next steps.
Tip: Use dot-voting or roman-voting to prioritize the group that is most important to the team.
Note: It is recommended to assign a facilitator who could help the team move along especially when things get stuck.
