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More learnings from IAF Conference 1997 I.D.E.A.S. for ideal brainstorming by Susan Nurre What do you say about a nicely dressed man that stands in the front of the room drinking out of a Daffy Duck coffee cup while shooting darts and small airplanes at the audience? This same guy later tosses balloons around the room and has us write on pictures of T-shirts! Meet Arthur B. VanGundy, IAF 97 presenter. Arthur believes in setting a fun tone early in a session and working with that “positive affect” to encourage creativity and spontaneity in idea generation. For Arthur, the I.D.E.A.S. required for Ideal Brainstorming include: technIques -- use a variety of techniques Divergence -- defer judgment and encourage quantity in generating ideas pEople -- include different kinds of thinkers, experts, personalities, disciplines lAughs -- generate a spirit of playfulness, silly ideas, humour, laughter procesS -- prepare and plan including agenda, methods, groundrules. Some “Fun” Techniques In the session, we got to experience several of the techniques from VanGundy’s book, Brain Boosters for Business Advantage (Pfeiffer, 1995), including Remember those balloons he was throwing around? His technique: Generate one list of problem-related words and one list of nonsense-unrelated words (about 18 each). Cut words into small strips and insert problem-related words into balloons of one colour and unrelated words into balloons of another colour. Blow up balloons then bounce them back and forth between (or within) groups. Each person selects a balloon of each colour and bursts them as a group (the sound is great – like fireworks!!). Group members select pairs of paper slips and read them aloud in turn. The entire group then uses the combinations to stimulate idea generation. And the T-shirt picture? Have each group member write down one idea on a sheet of paper (a “shirt sheet”), tape it to his/her back and walk around the room. Other members read the ideas on the shirt sheets and use them to think of new ideas and add them to the same sheet. Brainstorming/Brainwriting While Arthur distinguishes group brainstorming as oral generation of ideas and brainwriting as the silent written generation of ideas, the groundrules are the same: defer judgment the wilder the better (ideas can trigger practical solutions) piggyback or hitchhike on other ideas quantity breeds quality He uses an introduction to a brainstorming question such as “In what ways might we…” or “How might we…” Some question development rules: target one objective per question keep it positive avoid criteria to limit ideas, introduce additional criteria as needed later on The session was playful, full of toys and humour, allowing Arthur to establish an environment that was childlike, permitting us to think like children, and yet wasn’t childish. For other techniques such as Combo Chatter, Air Cliché, Picture Tickler, and Product Improvement Checklist (PICL), pick up Arthur’s book (1-800-274-4434) – and prepare for fun! œ Contact Arthur VanGundy at 405-447-1946 or avangundy@aol.com © 1993-1999 Copyright All rights reserved