How to Run an Effective Brainstorming Meeting

You probably are planning to schedule a brainstorming meeting to generate new ideas or find solutions to business problems. A brainstorming meeting is one of the best methods to find innovative and creative solutions.

For creative organizations like Pixar, IDEO, Apple, brainstorming meeting is key factor for their success. Similarly, you can also create great ideas and solutions through brainstorming meetings. If you run the meeting in the right way with the right process.

There are a few techniques to follow to hold an effective brainstorming meeting. Before that, let’s understand a few basics of brainstorming meeting.

What is Brainstorming meeting?

Brainstorming meeting is where we get multiple people in a single room with an objective to come up with a distinctive solution.

The concept is that with more minds at work there will be more ideas on the table. These ideas are strengthened or blended with other’s ideas to come up with the ultimate solution. It’s an idea fusion process to create something new.

Following is the one-line definition of a brainstorming meeting,

“A brainstorming meeting is when multiple ideas from multiple sources are combined to a single distinctive idea to solve the problem statement of the meeting.”

As per Wikipedia,

“Brainstorming is a group creativity technique by which efforts are made to find a conclusion for a specific problem by gathering a list of ideas spontaneously contributed by its members.”

Five Key Parameters to run an effective Brainstorming Meeting

1 – Problem Statement 

Brainstorming starts with a problem statement. It sets the purpose for the meeting, and clarity among all attendees. Facilitator should clearly define the problem statement as it will set the course of the meeting and will decide the outcome. A good problem statement is that defines the problem and required outcome.

“However, be careful with solution paradox, make sure you have mentioned no solution in the problem statement.”

For eg – 

There are new products being launched in the market that are like us. They are gaining a decent market share. We see them giving us tough competition in future if we don’t take a step today. We need to distinguish our product from them that appeal to our current and potential customers.

A bad problem statement is if one of the elements i.e. problem or outcome is missing. Or if there is a solution mentioned in the problem statement itself. 

For eg, if from the above example the following is the problem statement, 

We need to distinguish our product from them that appeal to our current and potential customers.

or

We need to add the XYZ feature to distinguish our product from the new products. 

2 –  Multiple Ideas

In any brainstorming meeting, there should be a discussion on multiple ideas. A brainstorming meeting should not focus on a single idea. There are a lot of times when we go into a brainstorming meeting to think through multiple ideas. However, we get stuck in a ‘great idea trap’. During the start itself, we get an idea that the entire group gets so excited about that we carry forward with it and don’t brainstorm on other possibilities.

You should commit the first half of a brainstorming meeting to getting as many ideas on the table as possible. Later, half focus on selecting a few ideas and then further discussing them.

Make sure you don’t fall into the ‘great idea trap’. Please note till the first half of the meeting, all ideas are great.

3 – Multiple Sources

 A key factor for a successful brainstorming meeting is the number of people taking part in the meeting and their background and expertise. The good size for brainstorming meeting starts from 2 to 3 on the lower side and 8-10 people on the higher side. 

If you have over 8-10 people, then plan to create multiple small groups. Let the brainstorm happen in multiple smaller groups and then get all the smaller groups together. 

Another aspect is the background and experience of each of the attendees. It would be better to have people from different backgrounds, as it will add more perspectives, resulting in more creative juicing. 

Sometimes, it’s important to get someone outside the organization. The thought process of people within the organisation is limited to the organizational framework. This will give new perspectives. You can call your vendors or any consultants. 

4 – Meeting Conductor/Facilitator 

Assign a meeting facilitator for a brainstorming meeting. Please do not confuse this with the owner of a brainstorming meeting. There is no owner of a brainstorming meeting. Brainstorming meeting does not belong to a single person, but it belongs to everyone who is part of the meeting.

This meeting facilitator will make sure he/she follows all the processes in the meeting. It will make sure that a single person is not dominating the meeting. Everyone’s ideas are welcomed and accepted.

The facilitator will not take part in the meeting’s process but will overlook the meeting and run it, and will make sure the team follows all steps.

5 – Right Environment 

In a brainstorming meeting, you need all the minds to be working. You need ideas from every mind and every individual. For that, each one attendee must share their ideas.

Everyone is not comfortable sharing ideas. You need to set up the right environment where everyone feels secure and comfortable in sharing ideas.

Everyone should share ideas. There should be a time frame to each person. A single person should not dominate the meeting.

No ideas should be a judge or tagged as stupid or bad. You should treat all ideas with equal respect. This will engine the creative juices and give more freedom to each attendee to come up with more ideas.

All these things are managed and monitored by the facilitator, and all the attendees need to understand it and respect all ideas.

You need to set each mind free with no limit and get as many ideas as possible.

Types of a brainstorming meeting

Types of brainstorming meetings are more based on the objective of brainstorming. Usually, there are 2 objectives. 

Problem Solving

Business is facing a problem or threat from competition, customers or other sources. Here the team gets together to come up with a strategy or solution for the problem. 

Idea Generation

When no problem leads to a brainstorming meeting but to come up with new ideas to enhance a product or expand the market. It’s also a key element of the design thinking process that helps generate more ideas.

10 Steps to run an effective brainstorming meeting 

1 – Set a clear goal for the meeting

You need to know ‘why’ the meeting is happening and what is the expected result from the meeting. This awareness will make sure everyone is on the right course.  

2 – Schedule the meeting in advance 

Don’t schedule a brainstorming session with only a few hours’ notice. Schedule it at least 2-3 days prior, so it gives everyone some time to research and gather some points. 

3 – Share the brief and objective of the meeting

Inform everyone on why the meeting is happening and give a brief or context for the topic being discussed at the meeting. So, attendees know what they need to prep for. 

4 – Set the Context

At the start of the brainstorming meeting, set the context. Prepare 2-3 slides for this. Don’t make it over 5 slides. The topic needs to be clear. 

If you are discussing a topic like losing market share and how to gain market share, then talk about your competitors, their USP, the reason for success. Have a slide on current market share and expected market share. 

If you are discussing innovating an additional feature, then mention a few customer testimonials, overview of the customer survey, and common pain points. 

5 – Define the Problem Statement

Once you have set the context. Next, you need to define the problem statement. Create a problem statement before the meeting. Add it to your presentation.

Once you present the problem statement. Discuss 15 minutes on the problem statement. Get feedback from all attendees and together complete on the problem statement. Go ahead only once everyone is aligned to the problem statement. 

6 – Get the Ideas from all Attendees 

Now, as the context is set and the problem statement is defined, it’s time to come up with ideas.

Next 15 minutes you should take ideas from everyone. Ask everyone to share at least 5 ideas. It has 2 advantages, one everyone is forced to think for more ideas thus leading to a few uncommon ideas, and second the more ideas you have the better result you could get. Your goal is to get as many ideas as possible without thinking about quality. 

If you are in a virtual meeting, then you can work on a common Google Sheet. And if it’s a physical meeting, then use post stick notes. 

7 – Evaluation of Idea

Now, create a list of all ideas, either from Google Sheet or stick the notes on the meeting wall. Remove the duplicate ideas and have only all unique ideas only. 

Now, ask everyone to vote for their best 3 ideas. They need to rank the top 3 ideas 1, 2, and 3. Make sure no one is choosing their ideas. 

Now, calculate a score for each idea. All the 1s will get a score of 5, all the 2s will get a score of 3, and all the 3s will get a score of 1. 

Based on the final scores, shortlist the top 10 ideas. 

8 – Explore the top 10 ideas 

Take each idea separately and discuss it.

Start with the first idea, open the floor for discussions on it. During the discussion, the idea will develop and there will be a new version of it. Here you can also add more ideas to it and merge and come up with a fusion idea as the new version. Consider the new version now.

Evaluate and check how much impact the idea will have on the problem statement. You need to rate from scale 1 – 5. 1 being very low impact and 5 being very high impact.

Repeat this step for all the ideas. Here, you may have merged a few ideas and you could be left with fewer than 10 ideas. Don’t worry, this is great. 

9 – Finalise 1 – 3 ideas

Once you have the rank table, it will be obvious for you on which idea you need to go forward with. Based on the type of problem statement, complete minimum 1 and maximum 3 ideas.

If your objective was to innovate a new feature, then one idea will be ideal. If there are more interesting ideas, then add them to your product roadmap for future reference. 

Sometimes, you need a multifaceted approach and a single activity may not have that impact then in such cases you can go ahead with 3 ideas. For example, if you are looking to increase market share, maybe for this you would need to implement multiple ideas.

10 – Allocate the owner of the idea

Once you have the ideas, you need to go forward with. Allocate the custodian for than an idea. Let that person take it forward and plan the execution strategy for it.

Keep the planning of execution of ideas as a separate meeting. 

Try this process of holding an effective brainstorming meeting and share your outcome from the process. 

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