Brainstorming is pretty ineffective
I’ve taken part in loads of brainstorms in my career and there have been occasional flashes of brilliance from attendees but by and large I have found them a pretty blunt instrument. The concept that you can somehow force a bunch of people in a room to come up with killer ideas in a 60 minute time frame seems a bit unrealistic to me. I just don’t think that most people’s brains work like that. What I often experienced were a lot of recycled ideas and a lot of playing safe.
I’ve heard this kind of thing on twitter before, from people in agencies who say that the same idea gets floated again and again. Part of the problem might be that attendees aren’t briefed properly before the brainstorm so they don’t fully understand the objectives. (Incidentally, the best brainstorms I experienced included some whacky stuff like Play-Doh.)
I then asked my twitter followers how they came up with their best ideas and a few like me said that it was either when they were falling asleep or in the middle of the night sometime. I have a theory that daydreaming or dozing allows you to be more creative as your brain frees up some of its RAM, if you like.
After a little bit of web browsing I came across this piece, which sums things up nicely.
One of the smartest ways to think is not to.
I propose that daydreaming should now be compulsory in the workplace!
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