There is a growing realization that brainstorming (aka ideation, aka idea generation) sessions are set up for failure. This is arguable, and I expect I’ll hear how I’m wrong about this.  Many facilitators have a religious belief in the power of brainstorming. While I believe they can be truly productive, I do think brainstorming “works”, I think the formula for success is very tricky. I believe most brainstorm session plans are fundamentally flawed. Sadly, it’s mis-directed creativity that does not lead to innovation.

What normally happens is usually not absolute failure.  Typical results are… mediocre, with incremental ideas as the result. Sometimes this is good enough, incremental ideas are often exactly what you want, and are under-valued. If that’s your goal, incremental ideas, you can ignore my advice here and declare victory.

And yet, managers keep looking for better ways, and facilitators keep looking for better tools and techniques to get to Breakthrough ideas.  It’s the Holy Grail of Ideation. People often go to great lengths  to get to breakthrough ideas and it’s frustrating when it doesn’t happen. And, IMHO, it usually doesn’t happen. The current BS about ideas being a dime a dozen is just that, BS. Truly great breakthrough ideas are hard to come by.

Let me get more to the point here –I think many sessions are missing the boat just as it’s being pushed off the dock; that is, at the very start of a session.  When I say start, I mean that moment when you tell people what it’s all going to be about.  That might be a few weeks before the session, or it might be at 9:00 am when a session kicks off. It’s when you start thinking about the question at hand.

I’ve made the mistake, and I’ve encouraged others to make the mistake in the past.  The mistake is in how you plan and plot the initial question to answer in the session. A lot of effort goes into coming up with a highly defined brainstorm question (aka Platform, aka Ideation Challenge Question). It’s not a mistake to plot and plan the question, but be careful — in doing so you often lead your followers down a very particular path in the woods. It is likely you’ll get just what you ask for — answers to that question.  What you won’t get are answers to better questions, and, you won’t get the breakthrough ideas you’re looking for. If you ask “In what ways might we develop an on-the-go breakfast cereal?” You are going to get some very specific ideas that include a cereal. You won’t get many ideas out of that frame.

The more of an “MBA” (apologies) you are, that is, the more of a detailed session planner you are, seeking control, the more likely you are to fall into the trap of leading your resource group very carefully astray.  Facilitators often provide advice about the kinds of ideas they want.  Call them “guardrails” to steer brainstorming. An example would be “can’t require a new factory” or “can’t cannibalize an existing product/brand we own”. The thing is, guardrails work. They work so well in fact, they doom the session to mediocrity. You don’t want guardrails or control — you want expanded thinking. Particularly at the start. You can herd the cats later!

Recent research in how the brain works verifies this, as does research in the particular area of brainstorming. Bob Koppel in his recent book Investing and the Irrational Mind, (currently running up the biz book chart by the way) cites an interesting Caltech study. Essentially, tasters of fine wines had a different experience of the wine — if they thought it was expensive. Perception leads reality, expectation leads the brain.  When we establish a closed-ended goal in ideation, we essentially close out breakthrough ideas. The wine price tag had people thinking the wrong way — it literally controlled how their brain worked. When we provide too many guardrails and highly defined questions, we’re telling the brain we don’t want breakthrough ideas.

Now, you might say that “an open-ended start” is a waste of time, and that the lack of focus is one of the big problems that a well defined question addresses.  I’d agree — and disagree. Unplanned ideation sessions spin off into all sorts of bad and irrelevant places AND go to interesting as all hell places. So, how then, might one start so that you have some focus, and yet, leave the minds of all open to more breakthrough, less typical ideas?

In a word, “stimuli”.  Stimuli that gently suggests ideas or directions without being overly prescriptive. The best stimuli I’ve found is cultural trend based, kinesthetic, and open-ended in nature. This kind of inspirational stimuli leads to more questions first, then more diverse answers later. See what Kiln Ideas, Ltd is doing for more detail on this approach.

And…I’m not saying you start open-ended and never present more closed-ended questions to ideators. I simply believe you should start with the former and end with the latter. The new art of ideation design, in my view, is how you manage the process of starting open and getting closed over time. If you really want control, and breakthrough ideas, this is where you need to go.

Let the debate begin!