Leading Brainstorming Sessions

Some people dread brainstorming sessions. This is because when they are poorly structured, they can go on for what seems like hours with no progress being made. The worst thing about a poor brainstorm meeting is the silence that fills the room at the beginning, before people start coming up with relevant and viable ideas.

To ensure your brainstorming sessions are effective, it’s best to create an environment that is ideal for ideas to sprout. Each individual who is a part of the brainstorming meeting has different strengths to the person sitting next to them. The leader of the meeting should try to utilise each member’s individual talents to make the meeting more productive.

By doing this, the leader can help their team tap into the collective of strengths from each person in the room. Brainstorming meetings are about using the brainpower of a team to come up with effective ideas for a project which will be the solution to any problems that the project may face in the future.

The leader should be able to ask the right questions during the meeting to help the team further their ideas. When a team faces an obstacle, even if that obstacle is a lack of ideas, the leader needs to be able to find some way to get the creative juices flowing in the room. An easy way to this is by setting out a clear set of questions that need to be answered and allowing any ideas to flourish, no matter how outrageous. A good brainstorming leader realises that to get the best out of a session, they must be as open to thoughts as possible. There should be limiting language or negative opinions.

When brainstorming, always recognise good ideas and reward innovative ones. If an idea comes to fruition later on in the discussion, remember the employee that offered it. Brainstorming should be seen as a fun, energetic and most of all open process.

Trainer Bubble provide training course materials on Brainstorming Techniques that will help your participants understand the best way to lead brainstorming sessions and get the best out of their team.