Putting Science into the Art of Brainstorming

I get email from readers asking about how to run brainstorming sessions. These are group meetings that are designed to come up with creative new ideas on hard problems.  Many times such meeting can be a disappointment.  The questions is – what specific practices can we use to improve group cognitive performance during brainstorming? Just the stuff we want to discuss on the Next Brain Blog.

North Carolina University just released a comprehensive study that Finds Brainstorming Rules Can Lead to Real-World Success in Business Settings.

“The study found that there are 21 specific best practices that contributed to successful brainstorming efforts, and that the benefits of high quality brainstorming could be attained when at least 10 to 11 of those practices are put into place – such as the inclusion of subject-matter specialists and an openness to input from all team members.”

This is one of the few empirical studies I have found that  shows the quality of brainstorming can impact group decision-making. You can find the details in a free draft version of the paper. They quote a lot of interesting research some of which flies in the face of normal practice. For example:

“More importantly, contemporary experimental research by Lynch et al. 2009 and Hunton and Gold 2010 find that the brainstorming methods that are predominant in practice e.g., face-to-face communication and open brainstorming are less effective than alternative methods e.g., electronic communication and round robin brainstorming.”

Interested to hear from readers that use specific techniques to improve the cognitive performance of brainstorming.