Brainstorming Techniques

Brainstorming is not just for the corporate world, it can be used by anyone for anything. From changing careers to planning a birthday party. Brainstorming is very effective to get ideas to solve a problem. Here are a few brainstorming examples. The first one is an example of a group brainstorming for the company picnic.

First, the committee for the picnic took a survey from coworkers about what they wanted to have for the company picnic. The most popular suggestion was to have a theme for the picnic. The picnic committee already knew what the budget was and how far from work to have the picnic. Armed with all the supportive information they needed, the head of the committee requested a brainstorming session.

In brainstorming examples, a facilitator was used instead of a group leader from the company. The facilitator brought his secretary to record all the ideas and notes. The facilitator present the ground rules to the brainstorming session. A piece of paper was pinned to the wall with the goal of the session, which was a theme for the picnic. Two flip charts were used to write down the ideas so everyone could see them. Then the facilitator started the brainstorming session.

As the session progressed, the facilitator chose group members one at a time to present their ideas. When any group member criticized another group member's ideas, they were quickly reminded they were breaking the ground rules. More ideas were presented but a group member elaborating on an idea by giving details interrupted the flow. The facilitator informed the group member to save details until the end and quickly moved on to the next group member.

At the end of the brainstorming session, the facilitator presented all of the ideas to the group. Each group member went to the flip chart and made three choices. After the last group member made their choices, the facilitator reviewed all the choices and chose the top four. After the choices were presented to the group, each group member was asked why each of the four choices would be a good theme for the company picnic. After group members had their turn, the facilitator presented the suggested theme for the picnic.

The facilitator of this brainstorming session used a variety of techniques of brainstorming examples. The results were a combination of an idea with another idea added onto it.

Typical of brainstorming sessions are include other brainstorming examples. A management team uses a brainstorming session to get opinions of a drafting strategy. The problem present was about air tools and the noise they make. Groups of members who use compressed air tools were used for the brainstorming session.

In this example, the group members were part of the solution. These members used the tools that made the noise and it was part of their responsibility to come up with creative ideas on how to make them quieter.

Among brainstorming examples would be accountants in a brainstorming session presenting ideas on how to resolve the problem of a fuel surcharge without increasing the transportation budget.

Here again is another example of group members being part of the problem and part of the solution.