Brainstorming

The term Brainstorming has become a commonly used word in the Englishlanguage as a generic term for creative thinking. The basis of brainstormingis a generating ideas in a group situation based on the principle of suspendingjudgment - a principle which scientific research has proved to be highly productivein individual effort as well as group effort. The generation phase isseparate from the judgment phase of thinking.

The term was invented by Alex Osborn and described in his book "AppliedImagination". Other authors have explained brainstorming, and I quotefrom Michael Morgan‘s book Creative Workforce Innovation to give thefollowing guidelines:

Brainstorming is a process that works best with a group of peoplewhen you follow the following four rules.

1. Have a well-defined and clearly stated problem
2. Have someone assigned to write down all the ideas as they occur
3. Have the right number of people in the group
4. Have someone in charge to help enforce the following guidelines:
   • Suspend judgment
   • Every idea is accepted and recorded
   • Encourage people to build on the ideas of others
   • Encourage way-out and odd ideas

In Serious Creativity, Edward de Bono describes brainstormingas a traditional approach to do deliberate creative thinking with theconsequence that people think creative thinking can only be donein groups. The whole idea of brainstorming is that other people‘sremarks would act to stimulate your own ideas in a sort of chainreaction of ideas.

Groups are not at all necessary for deliberatecreative thinking, and Serious Creativity describes techniquesfor individuals to use to produce ideas. In a group you have to listento others and you may spend time repeating your own ideas so theyget sufficient attention. Thinking as a group using brainstormingcan certainly produce ideas, but individual thinking using techniquessuch as those described by de Bono should be employed.

de Bono believes that individuals are much better at generating ideasand fresh directions. Once the idea has been born then a groupmay be better able to develop the idea and take it in more directionsthan can the originator.

Return to Techniques Page

Last updated: 18th October 1996