Have you heard? My new book Continuous Discovery Habits is now available. Get the product trio's guide to a structured and sustainable approach to continuous discovery. Thursday’s post, Stop Brainstorming and Generate Better Ideas, got quite the reaction, particularly on Twitter.
I’m not surprised. I also reacted strongly when I first learned about the research against brainstorming.
Rather than moving on to idea evaluation, I want to first respond to the most common objections.
What Does “Better Outcomes” Mean?
I made a number of claims tied to creative outcomes. For example, I said individuals generate more, diverse, unique ideas than the same number of individuals participating in brainstorming groups. Let’s take a look at what this means.
Creativity is measured along three dimensions.
- Fluency: the number of ideas generated
- Flexibility: the diversity of the types of ideas
- Originality: the uniqueness of an idea.
For example, if you were generating a list of animals, you might get the following scores:
dog, cat, mouse, horse, elephant
- Fluency: 5 ideas
- Flexibility: 5 different types of ideas
- Originality: 0-1 depending on how novel you think elephant is.
cat, lion, tiger, puma, leopard, jaguar, cheetah, cougar
- Fluency: 8 ideas
- Flexibility: 1 (they are all cats)
- Originality: 3-5 (depending on how novel you think the latter 5 are)
Most of the research that calls brainstorming into question is comparing the creative output of groups of individuals working alone against the same number of individuals brainstorming.
At least one or two of the studies only compared fluency, which I originally thought was a weak comparison. However, fluency is a precursor to both flexibility and originality, meaning the more ideas you generate the more diverse and unique they tend to be.
Trained Facilitators Do Help
Many people argued that the most common problems with brainstorming can be counteracted with good facilitation. This is true. Trained facilitators do help. But they help groups get to the same level of individuals working alone. They don’t help groups outperform individuals.
Most companies don’t have access to trained facilitators. It’s hard to justify this expense if you can get the same output by working individually.
Writing Ideas Down On Stickies Also Helps
Some people asked, “does writing ideas down on stickies help?”
Yes, writing ideas down on stickies is better than having people verbally shout ideas popcorn-style. It helps introverts who might not be comfortable jumping in to share their ideas.
It also can help reduce production blocking. But it depends on how it is managed. Often times, groups will use stickies to capture ideas while still shouting out ideas.
This can help as you can capture your ideas while waiting for your turn, but it doesn’t really solve the problem entirely. The idea that you are about to write down can still get lost when you hear someone else share their idea.
Brainstorming Is Only One Form of Group Ideation
While brainstorming has come under criticism by the research, there are other forms of group ideation that may still be effective.
Brainwriting: Instead of participants shouting ideas out as they occur to them, the group takes time to write down each of their own ideas in silence. After a period of silent writing, the group then takes turns sharing their ideas in a round-robin fashion.
Brainwriting prevents production blocking and reduces the chances of group conformity. Groups that use brainwriting techniques generate more, diverse ideas than brainstorming groups.
Nominal Group Technique: This technique extends brainwriting to include a session where the group discusses each of the proposed ideas. This is followed by a vote, where each participant rank-orders each idea. This technique overwhelmingly outperforms traditional brainstorming.
Many of the people who reacted negatively to my last post were proponents of one of these more effective techniques. I want to be clear, I’m not opposed to group ideation. In fact, my recommendations listed at the end of that post (and repeated below) outlined ways to make group ideation more effective.
The Research Isn’t Flawless
I will be the first to admit that the research isn’t flawless. Most of the studies used teams that weren’t trained in brainstorming, they don’t have facilitators, and they don’t have a lot of experience working together. Most used students as participants.
Having said that, this is not too different from how most companies brainstorm. Companies often pull cross-functional teams together who may not be familiar with each other. Few companies have trained facilitators and even fewer do team training in brainstorming.
Why Do You Need Brainstorming To Work?
When I first learned about the brainstorming research, i reacted strongly. I relied on brainstorming a lot and I was adamant it worked. IDEO uses it. The Stanford d.school uses it. Could they really be wrong?
I even wrote this post trying to sort it all out.
Ultimately, I had to ask myself, why do I need brainstorming to work? And I encourage you to ask yourself the same question.
Let’s be clear, what has been shown to not be effective is Osborn’s rules of brainstorming. There are plenty of forms of group ideation that may still be effective.
If I’ve learned anything, it’s that language isn’t precise and we often are unaware of what we are actually doing. I am sure that the “brainstorming” activities that IDEO and the d.school participate in are useful for them. I also know that both organizations have extended and modified Osborn’s rules. Pixar has modified them significantly. This is not what I am calling into question as there is little research here.
If you do use one of these newer methods, why not run your own experiment? Try brainwriting or the nominal group technique. Compare the output of these methods to your own methods.
Many companies, however, don’t follow these newer methods. They follow Osborn’s rules – or worse – no rules at all. This, we know, doesn’t work.
My Recommendations
As a result, I stand by my original recommendations.
1. Ideas can happen anywhere at anytime. Your ideation strategy should allow people to capture ideas as they occur.
2. Ideas spur more ideas. All ideas should be visible to everyone on the team. It should be easy for others to extend, comment, or vote for other people’s ideas.
3. Diverse ideas lead to better ideas. The more people you include the better outcomes you’ll get. Include everyone in your ideation process.
4. We know that solutions from one domain applied to another domain often lead to creative solutions. Make it easy for groups to pull ideas from other parts of the organization.
Want to Read More?
Improving the Creativity of Organizational Work Groups
Leigh Thompson and Leo F. Brajkovich
The Academy of Management Executive (1993-2005), Vol. 17, No. 1 (Feb., 2003), pp. 96- 111
This paper does a good job of summarizing the research. If you are interested in reading the original studies, check the references list.
On Thursday, we’ll tackle idea evaluation. Don’t miss out. Subscribe to the Product Talk mailing list.
Hi Teresa! I know you touched on this briefly in this post, but I see a lot of common ground between what you’re saying and some of the points that Susan Cain makes in her book “Quiet.” She also talks about how group settings don’t produce the best results for brainstorming or problem-solving because we tend to let extroverts rule the discussions and people often conflate eloquence with competence (in other words, just because someone is good at speaking in a group setting, that doesn’t mean that they are actually making better points than the quiet people whose voices aren’t heard).
She also makes the case that open source contributions work online, but trying to replicate the same types of results with a group of people in the same room doesn’t work.
If you haven’t already read it, I think you’d find the first few chapters of her book especially relevant to many of the points in today’s post.
Thanks, Melissa! It’s been on my list for a long time. I’ll bump it up.
Melissa, I read Quiet. I really liked it. It was much better than I thought it was going to be. I hadn’t gotten around to it because I thought it was just going to be the standard fare on introverts / extroverts. But it had much more depth than that. Thanks for encouraging me to move it to the top of my list.
Hi Teresa! That’s great – I’m glad to hear that you enjoyed it. I heard that Susan Cain’s TED Talk is also really good but I haven’t seen it yet.
To back you up on this, I conducted an interview last week with a professor who teaches creative problem solving, and he said the same thing, that research has shown that traditional “brainstorming” is less ideal in many cases than other approaches. He pointed specifically to the fact that shyer(sp?) people don’t have as much of a voice, the ideas don’t get as fully articulated vs. prior individual ideation, and that you don’t get the benefit of vigorous debate, which often leads to good results. I was surprised and asked him if what 90% of Corporate America probably does for brainstorming is actually outdated vis-a-vis the research, and he answered in the affirmative.
If I had to guess the reasons for the visceral reaction against this finding (I felt it as well), I think one reason is because the traditional brainstorming process ‘feels’ so obviously right and immediately satisfying, like a sugar rush from candy. During brainstorming ideation we feel like we are following a sublime counter-intuitive rule by going for “quantity over quality”, even though we’ve only allotted 45 minutes to generate ideas, and we feel like we are engaging in a disciplined suppression of self by “witholding critique”, even though within an hour we’ll let ourselves cross out all of the crazy ideas on the flipchart. Just a hunch, but I’ve been on both sides of this brainstorming process (participating & facilitating), and there’s something that feels smug about it…kind of like taunting lions behind a cage and then calling yourself reckless.
-Charlie
Your thesis is similar to saying “Driving a race car is not working for me and research shows that race cars are not any more effective form of transportation than getting in any other car.”
All of the recent research, most of it offered by casual journalists who merely repeat assertions by their interviewees, is flawed in that it entirely ignores the foundational research that Osborn and his collaborator Dr. Sid Parnes performed over decades at CPSI. (Osborn was ultimately more than an “ad man” and the reduction of him to such displays casual journalists’ unfamiliarity with his actual accomplishments.) And it reduces the huge body of work – *funded by Osborn* – on active divergence down to the word “brainstorming”.
As a result of this ignorance of the history of the literature, a lot of people are *re-discovering* much of what Osborn and Parnes established long ago, although people’s interpretation of what they observe is perhaps somewhat flawed, too. It all comes down to this: active divergence requires skill; active practice can build that skill.
Most people who get in a room and begin “brainstorming” simply lack the training and practice in active divergence, and therefore lack the skill to be effective participants. Hence such observations that some participants display an inability to express a divergent idea after another expresses their own or perhaps to express a similar variant after another participant offers an idea first.
This is why trained facilitators in creative problems solving methodologies, e.g., Basadur Simplex, Kepner-Tregoe, TRIZ, etc., can make such a big difference in the output. It is also why trained facilitators also use idea gathering techniques (digital and physical) such as those you’ve described, as well as many other tools, to power more effective worksessions.
P.S. – A few resources you might want to check out: http://www.humantific.com/nextd-archive-launches/
Tony,
Thanks for taking the time to write such a long and thoughtful comment.
Everything I wrote in this article is rooted in academic research, not from journalists.
I’m not opposed to group ideation. In fact, I’m a proponent of it. But we shouldn’t encourage people to follow methods that don’t work.
The reference at the end of this article is for an academic article that cites all the original research.
Cheers,
Teresa
Yes. The link pointed to an article that requires a subscription. So I must confess to ignorance as to its contents and therefore validity. I’m sure they’re nice people. Folks who take the time to care about these issues usually are. 🙂
I was referring to folks in the NYT and Jonah Lehrer, who gained unfortunate traction repeating the ideas of researchers whose research was not well grounded historically (and in some cases, methodologically).
Many current researchers fail to address the underlying challenge: lack of skill. What Osborn and Parnes demonstrated at CPSI was that with comparatively little time applied in practice exercises, people can become dramatically more able to diverge. (From 1x to 2-3X in 90 minutes or less.)
All of this is even more important when one looks at the frequently expressed desire within corporations to create a “more innovative culture”. But there’s no (or at best very little) investment in practical training. People think that a “mind shift” event, such as a TED talk, or a shared experience reading a book will make a difference. But those activities do not support a real skill shift. And so everyone goes back to their desks the same as they arrived. Inspired, perhaps. But no more skilled to do the actual work.
I should caveat this all by saying that I have no desire for people to continue to try to brainstorm ineffectively. And I have no objection to idea gathering as a tool. But for those people who actually care about the discipline, I’d like to see us go deeper into the history, the research and the frameworks that precede us before we accept the latest common wisdom.
Another great resource, btw, from the folks at Humantific: http://issuu.com/humantific/docs/methods_mapping_preview. Here you can browse many years of creative problem solving frameworks for yourself.