brainstorming does not equal BRAINSTORMING

brainstorming does not equal BRAINSTORMING


Often writers talk about brainstorming, a bunch of untrained, unskilled, inexperienced in group dynamics and ideation generation sitting around a table or in a room with an equally untrained, minimally experienced person who thinks they are FACILITATING AN IDEATION SESSION.


BRAINSTORMING as written about, taught, trained, guided for 60+ years by first Alex Osborn, then Sid Parnes and Alex and since then hundreds to perhaps a 1000 or 2000 CPSI leaders during the 58 annula CPSI conferences, 25+ Winterfests, a few Houston Lites and other individual programs and regional Springboard programs is a CREATIVE THINKING TOOL/TECHNIQUE with initially Alex' 4 Basic Guidelines

1. Quantity breeds quality....the more ideas the better the probably of creative ideas being generated or discovered

2. No Judgement....60 years of experiences by thousands to 10s of thousands of trained teachers, trainers, consultants, college professors have demonstrated that with groups of stranger to groups of people who work together to even trained committed teams trying to be CRITICAL/NEGATIVE/JUDGEMENTAL at the same time that you are trying to GENERATE IDEAS/CREATIVE IDEAS kills the mood, spirit, energy and results of the ideation session.

3. Freewheeling....any idea is okay....this is one of the most difficult to keep people following in groups who THINK THEY KNOW EACH OTHER, because of differences in beliefs, backgrounds, morals, religions, political leanings, etc.  It is also difficult with groups comprised of strangers.

4. Hitchhike...combine ideas to generate more and more ideas


Added to this are many other facilitation techniques and approaches that have been learned through the experiences of thousands and thousands of groups, both trained and untrained.

Humor
warming groups up
having ground rules or guidelines
having funny ways to teased people to stop judging
techniques for keeping the flow of ideas going and stopping people from over discussing or defending ideas during the IDEATION STAGE.

there is so much more that has been learned

but these learnings, techniques, processes, tools are not included in the infamous NEGATIVE STUDIES that authors in the 50s and still today keep quoting without ever looking at the MANY MORE POSITIVE STUDIES.

brainstorming seldom equals Brainstorming, what Alex Osborn created and thousands of people use and teach after 60+ years.