Groups do have a natural talent, which is the evaluation of ideas, rather than their creation. The conclusion of the psychological literature, therefore, is that people should be encouraged to generate ideas on their own and meetings should be used to evaluate these ideas.
from Brainstorming Reloaded
I think most managers would know this. It takes science (ready pyschology) to tell us so, but expereince would have brought you to similar results.
Here are my suggestions for brain storming:
1. Send out a list of seed ideas - for people (team) to know what to build on or what kind of ideas you are looking for. You could get someone coming up with something totally opposite, that would help too.
2. Lay out the rules. Are you going to vote? Are you going to do a one-on-one challenge of ideas? will you decide by cost, customer or employee parameters?
3. Who will be responsible for implementation? No good if the brilliant idea is shelved coz it came from the opposite camp.
4. Why need the session? Most managers do it only coz it looks good and it looks like a team activity. write down why you need to do this.
Have a happy one!
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