We have all participated in brainstorming sessions, whether it is for an essay in school or in a business meeting with a group of people for a new product. Brainstorming is ideal for coming up with creative solutions to an existing problem. However, in a group brainstorming session, for various reasons only a few key players express their ideas and the rest of the room simply follows suit and expounds and rehashes the same ideas until it is spread very thin. The final consensus is reached without considering ideas that never materialised because the majority of the team never had the opportunity to speak up.
Some team members may simply be shy, or afraid of rejection or ridicule. Some may fear that their ideas are too bold to propose while conservatives may only stick to safe alternatives. Stronger personality types may push their own ideas and get defensive.
What is it?
Brainstorming is very effective, but it has its drawbacks and particularly so in large groups. These drawbacks are addressed by the brainwriting technique, an idea generation process that ensures participation from every team member. This approach generates far more ideas than brainstorming and sometimes from the unlikeliest of sources.
History
Brainwriting is described by former Chief, PCIS, UNICEF Bangladesh Neill McKee with Dr Hermann Tillman and Dr Maria Salas in their Visualization in Participatory Programs Manual which was used during planning processes for social mobilisation and communication in UNICEF-supported programmes in Bangladesh.
How does it address the issue?
Traditional brainstorming allows one person to speak at a time. Hypothetically speaking, by the time your chance to speak comes at the end of the table, you have already edited, rejected or forgotten your original idea. This reduces spontaneity, creativity, and productivity of brainstorming sessions. Brainwriting effectively eliminates this problem by giving everyone an equal opportunity in a non-threatening scenario.
Why use it?
Brainwriting is extremely simple and doesn’t require any preparation – just participation It allows equal participation from all without inhibition – vocal and shy personalities alike It reduces the likelihood of conflict as people focus on the problem at hand and the solutions rather than on individual people.How does it work?
1. There is no need for facilitation during the process, but a facilitator should prepare papers or cards with brainwriting the template for each participant. Refer to the figure for how this template should look.
2. 6 to 8 participants should sit in a circle facing inward.
3. Each participant at this point needs to think of an actual problem to be addressed, and write it down on the top of the page. (In case the problem to be addressed has already been agreed upon, the facilitator should write the problem on the top of the sheet before handing it to everyone.)
4. Each participant hands their sheet of paper to the person sitting on their left for them to write a suggestion or answer to the problem proposed.
5. Once all the participants are done writing an answer or suggestion on the paper, they hand it to the person sitting on their left again.
6. This person may choose to do one of the following or both – write an entirely new suggestion below the original suggestion, or improve on the first one. Once done, participants must pass the paper to their left again.
7. The session continues like so till each participant has seen each paper and answered problems posed on every one of them.
8. In a debriefing period at the end of the process, participants may choose to discuss and select the best solutions for each of the original problems posed.
