Brainstorming is a powerful technique to promote creative ideas and solve problems. But how do you brainstorm effectively? What are the best methods to unleash your team’s potential and avoid common pitfalls?
In this blog, we will explore some of the most reliable brainstorm methods, like mind mapping, SCAMPER, reverse brainstorming, and more. Whether you are looking for new product ideas or solutions to challenges, these brainstorming methods can work well.
Right now, let’s discover more with us!
Table of Contents
9 Best Brainstorm Methods You Should Not Miss
#1. Mind mapping
Mind mapping is one of the most famous brainstorm methods, which is used to organize data into a hierarchy to explain a specific topic. Normally, you need to start with a central theme and draw relevant sub-topics to make your idea clearer.
You can create a mindmap manually or use an online mind-mapping maker. This depends on your skills and requirements. However, it’s recommended to use a web-based tool to save your time and effort.
#2. Reverse brainstorming
Another outstanding brainstorm technique is reverse brainstorming. It is a simple but powerful method that turns problems into solutions. You can start by asking: “How can I make this worse?”. And, of course, you need to list all the potential reasons to solve this question.
After that, let’s reverse each idea and find ways to avoid them. In this way, you can discover the best solutions for your problem. From our experiences, reverse brainstorming is especially effective in learning and customer support.
#3. SWOT Analysis
Indeed, SWOT analysis is not an effective brainstorm method of teaching or learning. Instead, it is a strategic business exercise that you can use to analyze your products through 4 main concerns, including:
- Strengths: Outstanding points of your products when compared to your competitors
- Weakness: Things make your product low-evaluated on the market
- Opportunities: Any chance can promote your business and products
- Threats: Possible downfalls can make your products worse
#4. Brainwriting
Being one of the leading brainstorming methods for writing, brainwriting impresses users with its well-structured layouts. To begin with, you need to write down your ideas on post-it notes without revealing your name to other team members. This can stop you from being influenced by others and give you more chances to share your in-reality thoughts.
Basically, you should use brainwriting to collect as many ideas as possible, which is especially effective when working on large projects. Besides that, if you want to increase the efficiency of your team’s discussion, this method is also one of the ideal brainstorm methods.
#5. Rapid Ideation
When you want to generate plenty of ideas fast, you should take the support of rapid ideation. Similar to brainwriting, this technique also encourages your team to list random ideas. However, you must draw your ideas in a certain amount of time, between 5 to 10 minutes.
Many users consider that rapid ideation works like free writing, which focuses on your natural thoughts without judgments. From our experience, this method is great for sparking your creativity effectively.
#6. SCAMPER
With SCAMPER, you need to answer 7 problem-relating concerns to complete your brainstorming design. In particular:
- Substitute: What can you swap out for something better?
- Combine: How can you fuse different ideas into one?
- Adapt: How can you tailor your idea to fit your goal?
- Modify: How can you enhance your idea and make it stand out?
- Put to another use: How can you use your idea for other purposes?
- Eliminate: How can you cut out the unnecessary and keep the essential?
- Reverse: How can you flip your idea and see it from a new perspective?
From our experiences, this method requires you to invest more time to complete your brainstorming design. However, you can access every concern in detail.
#7. Starbursting
Starbursting is called a diagram illustration of “5W1H rules”, using “Who”, “What”, “Why”, “Where”, “When”, and “How” on each point. Basically, this brainstorm technique focuses on creating questions instead of solutions, which is beneficial to support the early stage of your product research. Another outstanding point is that you should use a star shape to illustrate your main topic.
#8. Round Robin
Among the brainstorm methods, we must mention Round Robin. To begin with, you should brainstorm your ideas in small groups. After that, you need to rotate in various groups and develop innovative ideas from the original topics. In some ways, Round Robin works similarly to Rapid Ideation.
#9. Whys Analysis
Whys analysis was developed by Taiichi Ohno, requiring you to answer an urgent series of “Why? Why? Why? Why? Why?”. Indeed, you can use “Why” more than 5 times, but this number is proven to be the most ideal option. Normally, you can use this method to tackle relatively complicated problems in your team’s projects.
FAQs
What are the 4 methods of brainstorming?
With this question, we will suggest the leading brainstorm methods, including:
Mind mapping
5 Whys analysis
Brainwriting
Starbursting
What are the 3 brainstorming techniques?
Currently, you can use the 3 major types of brainstorming, including verbal brainstorming, electronic brainstorming, and nominal group technique. Depending on your requirements, let’s pick a proper model to present your ideas.
What is the 6 3 5 method of brainstorming?
The 6-3-5 Brainwriting ideation technique is a powerful method to generate a flood of creative ideas in a matter of minutes. You need to have a team of 6 people writing 3 ideas in 5 minutes each round. As a result, this method can help you create 108 ideas only after 6 rounds.
Conclusion
Our blog has just introduced the 9 best brainstorm methods, which are beneficial for creating creative ideas and thoughts. Some techniques are encouraged to work with your team or group to reach the finest results. Thus, let’s consider everything carefully to pick a proper method.
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