10 tips for successful brainstorming session

When you have a group of people and you need to take their ideas from selected topic I can give you few tips:

1. start with mentioning expected results

2. use existing examples of realized ideas to avake inspiration

3. smile and mention funny ideas from past

4. write down every idea

5. try to include every participant

6. never focus to much only on one/two participants who have most ideas

7. after session send titles of all ideas to participants

8. send your notes to idea creator and ask for details

9. be boring when it comes to get more infos about ideas from creators

10. don't forget to send news about status of ideas to idea creators

Brainstorming is still the best way for idea-generation, so try to do it whenever you can!

innovation brainstorming workshops

Last month, I had four innovation workshops with brainstorming sessions, and what I learned is that in each group I can expect allways different situation. I had groups with 7-17 participants, they were from the same technical field and have the same techical knowledge. What was common in all 4 workshops is that the boss is always the leader with most ideas(that's good), other innovative people from past are followers, but some of participants haven't contribute at all. I reach some of them, with showing the benefits of ideas to indivudual(incentives+glory). Important is to notify about successful ideas from their department from near past.
The most successful group was the one that wanted to reach the big number of ideas, with no time-limit to their workshop. And they really did it! First the target was to have at least 14 ideas(from 7 participants) what was pushed from their boss, but they didn't stop until they reach 24 ideas. And they had the high quality of their ideas!
Concusion is that the commitment of the management + successful examples from the past + showing incentives, can lead to generation of big number of ideas. It's also essential to be active in such workshops and don't let the group to be silent. Innovation process should be explained before brainstorming, so that participants know in which program they can submit their idea.
Most important is to not let them forget about their ideas after workshop with at least sending reminder mails.