One of the most difficult things about working in a team is to figure out where to start, and even then it’s easy to get stuck along the way. This is where brainstorming comes in. Brainstorming alone can yield surprising results now imagine when you’re in a team! Brainstorming at the office allows everyone to move out of the conventional analytical thinking methods and spill their thoughts out in the open, and that’s the perfect way to get started.
From talking in a group to mind-mapping and a lot more, let’s discuss some of the brainstorming techniques for teams and how they benefit our work.
- Mind Mapping
Start by getting a fairly large piece of paper and at the centre of it, jot down your core purpose. Then let the team come in and start branching out ideas. Very quickly you’ll see a massive spider-web growing. Once complete, you can now start taking points from the massive map of ideas and begin your work.
2. Work Banking
Let everyone describe parts of the project using small terms and then group them up. Once the bank is complete you can then start connecting those terms to your project as you work. A word bank is a great brainstorming technique for teams because everyone can just describe their vision of the project without worrying how to apply it.
3. Rapid Ideation
Rapid ideation might be the most energetic brainstorming technique for teams. Start a timer and have your team sketch or scribble down as many raw, unfiltered ideas as they can in that time. When your buzzer goes off you now have dozens of crude and fresh ideas! Brainstorming at the office with this technique also acts as a warmup.
4. Starbursting
For those minds that require a more structured way of brainstorming at the office, Starbursting is the way to go. Make a 6-sided star with your main idea at the centre. Next, label each side with who, what, where, when, why, and how. Now inside the team and let everyone fill whatever side they want! Before you know it, you’ll have a structured plan for your project by this brainstorming technique for teams.
5. Brainwriting
This brainstorming technique at the office comes especially in handy for anyone who’s introverted. Each team member gets a slip to write down an idea and then pass it around. With every person an addition to the idea is made until everyone’s had a turn at all the slips.
At the end you have a bunch of ideas that everyone has developed! The best part about this brainstorming technique for teams is no-one has to voice anything out if not comfortable with it.
6. Thinking Hats
Oftentimes a team has people that specialize in their respective fields. This is a brainstorming technique for teams that lets everyone judge from their fields. Every team member wears an imaginary hat that looks at the project from a specific angle such as limitations. Now the person with the limitations will only judge the problem from a limitations perspective.
At the end of this brainstorming you’ll have very particular answers by the people who do their areas best!
7. Figure storming
This idea sits on the opposite end of the last one. Figure storming is a fun brainstorming technique for teams where team-members can think from a different person’s perspective and try to come up with solutions from their view! Stuck? Think of what Steve Jobs would do?
8. Group Sketching
Another brainstorming technique for teams that encourages free flowing creativity. Group sketching starts off with everyone drawing something related to the project and passing it on. The next person can modify it or draw something of their own. At the end of the session the team has a bunch of drawings related to the project giving them a place to start!
9. Wishing
Let your imaginations run wild! This brainstorming technique for teams makes everyone think of the wildest and extreme solutions to their problem and write them down. Then start by thinking which of them can be scaled down and what makes that idea so impossible? This technique of brainstorming at the office might just lead to creating a solution that you once only wished for!
10. Changing the Setting
As mundane as it might sound, this way of brainstorming for teams actually works wonders! Remove your team from the same four-walled rooms of the office and go out! Discuss and talk about your project by the lake or in a cafe and you’ll see how many original thoughts will come out because of the inspiration a mind can take in from its surroundings.
Summary
There are many other ways of brainstorming for teams and brainstorming at the office and they work better than you might imagine. Brainstorming can be a crucial element not just to get a head start or to overcome an obstacle but it also gives each team-member a feeling of being involved and being heard. Want to practice some of these brainstorming techniques for teams on your own? Come down to the co-working space at Iconic Workplaces and make it happen!
