More on brainstorming
Alex Soojung-Kim Pang from the Institute For The Future has posted an extended comment on Sandberg’s Cubicle Culture article. Pang shows a fine appreciation of the degree of planning involved in any good (facilitation) event.
He goes on to identify a second argument on the value of individual brainstorming, and speculate what the literature shows. The good news is that he’s at least partly right. Here’s one article mentioned by one of my colleagues, which treats the subject properly.
So what can we learn from all this? One thing is there’s a role for both individual and group work.
Having defined the topic, give individuals a chance to do their own thinking. This allows them to each get clear in their own minds and to get down their initial list of ideas.
Then get them to work together in small groups to come up with a consolidated list. This allows for both sparking new ideas off each other, for reducing overlaps, and for building agreement. Some facilitators call this one:pair:share.
A plenary session can then build a higher order of agreement across the group.