Brainstorming: Pros and Cons

Here is a thoughtful post about whether or not brainstorming is a waste of time at Lateral Action. Don't miss the great picture.  I am quoted as being for brainstorming, which is sort of true. My perspective on brainstorming is based on an 18 month ethnography at IDEO and from teaching innovation classes at the d.school classes for some years now.  And here is an early post on this blog that is goes through some of the same things.

My perspective on group brainstorming boils down to three points that are reflected in those links and the academic article below. In short:

1. The academic research on brainstorming -- the laboratory studies that are described as showing it doesn't work -- are rigorous but irrelevant. They compare how many ideas individuals working alone versus versus working in groups can utter into a microphone in the same stretch of time.  This is irrelevant and silly, as the practical norm that people take turns talking seems to explain why people are more productive alone -- so this research rules out LISTENING TO OTHERS as productive behavior. Also, the way those studies are done makes it impossible for people to build on each others' ideas -- because building on the ideas of others is impossible when you work alone.  I would add that this is not a reflection of a bias against lab studies, and in fact, when I did a talk on brainstorming at the Stanford Psychology Department, the renowned lab researchers there thought that the research was equally silly.  The notion that face-to-face meetings are not efficient way to get things compared to working along (and you need to waste all that time listening), but meetings do other things well, is not exactly a revelation, as the late Bob Zajonc pointed out during my talk.

 Indeed, thinking about it right now, it is pretty funny that some professors, who as the word implies "profess" rather than listen, would design experiments in ways that treat listening as non-productive behavior.

2. Brainstorming by itself is a technique that people can do well or badly, and there is big variance in skill and leadership -- something that even some lab studies that are labeled as being about brainstorming show. But I assert that brainstorming only makes a difference if it is part of a larger create process, as you see at IDEO, Pixar, and other places that do real creative work. If the group doesn't do some preparation and doesn't use the ideas generated -- if they don't later battle over which are best,  prototype some ideas, test them, try to implement them -- then it is just a bunch of useless ideas and perhaps a fun meeting.  So, for example, if you look at Tim Brown's Harvard Business Review article on Design Thinking, brainstorming is just one juncture in the process and in fact recognized as just one way to generate ideas (individual ideation is at least as important as group brainstorming).  Note that brainstorming experiments nearly always have people generate ideas about things that participants have no expertise about and generate ideas that of no value to the participants,  things like "what would you do with an extra thumb" or "how any uses are there for a brick." 

3. Brainstorming is something that doesn't work well in organizational cultures that are very authoritarian, where people view meetings as places to crush others and their ideas, where people have trouble with ambiguity, or where people do not feel otherwise psychologically safe.  It also should not be used by people who have no skill at doing it.  For example, one story that hints at all of these comes from one of my students. He had a summer job at a company where there was a strict status hierarchy and people had trouble with ambiguity.  A senior person called a one hour brainstorm.  The first 30 minutes were spent arguing over which categories to put the ideas in, and after one idea was suggested, the next 30 minutes were spent arguing over which category to put it in.  Then the brainstorm was over -- this student was and is an excellent brainstormer, but as he was a summer intern, he really wasn't supposed to say anything.  If you work at company like that, don't bother to try brainstorming.

In short, brainstorming does seem moderately useful in the right hands, in the right organization, and as part of a bigger creative process.  I am ready to change my mind about this hypothesis if people have better facts, but the current research provides no clue about the value of brainstorming as it is done in the real world. For example, having fun and impressing clients aren't studied as legitimate performance outcomes in this literature.  But keeping smart employees engaged and interacting with each other is valuable to organizations beyond any other value of brainstorming, and so is impressing clients. And as I said, these studies also treat listening as a waste of time.

Thoughts? Opinions? 

P.S. The reference for my academic work on this is Sutton, RI; Hargadon, A
"Brainstorming groups in context: Effectiveness in a product design firm"
ADMINISTRATIVE SCIENCE QUARTERLY; DEC 1996; v.41, no.4, p.685-718

 

Comments

[Muhtar]

For us old ham radio operators, CQ is a call for conevrsation, shorthand for seek you. So an open call for interaction would begin, CQ, CQ, is anyone on this frequency? Or CQ and the person's call if on a schedule. (At the time I was PP8ZAC in Manaus, Brazil.) Even though that is a dip into retroculture, it strikes at the nerve of your kind of CQ. That might be blended into a title somehow. BTW, I am preparing to use your CI book in a new course in Becoming Bicultural (tho they have a different course title for it) for this summer. I have always used Hesselgrave's CCCC or Smith's Creating Understanding for CCC classes, but am morphing toward new dimensions in this dynamic field. So thanks very much. See? An old dog CAN learn new tricks.

[Allen]

Years ago I was a temp tech writer at a huge aerospace company and got assigned to take notes at a brainstorming session.

It quickly became clear that I was the only person with formal brainstorming training and I wound up faciltating the session.

We came up with a lot of, what I thought were, great ideas but no one would step up and implement them. Just as you point out, it ended up a real waste of everyones time and a personal disappointment for me.

[Keith Harmeyer]

Bob, this is an excellent post and one of the most enlightened looks at brainstorming I've read in awhile.

Your point about "good" and "bad" brainstorming is absolutely spot on.

In our work at SmartStorming, we've found that fewer than 10% of individuals in ANY industry leading brainstorms have had any training in the topic.

How the studies can leave out this fundamental point is hard to understand.

With training, a facilitator can learn proper structure, leadership skills (for ensuring a group stays focused and on-task) and a wealth of ideation techniques to draw upon.

Again, great stuff. I look forward to reading and sharing more.

Keith Harmeyer
Partner
SmartStorming
New York

[Keith Harmeyer, SmartStorming]

Bob, your stuff is great.So glad I found your blog.

We action find in our work, both as trainers and facilitators, that the ideal situation is a combination of solo ideation and brainstorming. Again, it all comes back to the facilitator. But a group properly pre-briefed and challenged to ideate PRIOR to the session is obviously much better prepared to effectively share, build, develop and perfect ideas in the brainstorm.

Individuals can certainly generate valuable ideas alone. And groups can absolutely take those ideas and turn them on their heads 100 different ways - if properly guided through the process.

It is exciting to watch when they get it.

[Henrik Mårtensson]

I use the Crawford Slip brainstorming method a lot, and it has always produced very good results.

CS is a bit different from most other brainstorming methods though. The group is asked open-ended questions, and write their answers on slips of paper. Thus, ideas and suggestions are anonymous, there is no peer pressure, or group think.

I have found it useful to follow up a series of questions with a short group discussion, followed by a final group of slip writing.

The method itself has always yielded good results. The problem, of course, is that, as you point out, brainstorming must be part of a larger process. If the ideas aren't used, the brainstorming session is of little value.

What used to surprise me (it does not anymore) is that even though CS has produced very good results, I haven't yet seen a company that wants to use it regularly.

For example, I once used CS to do a risk analysis for a company. I did the analysis because a major customer insisted on it, not on the request of the company itself. That analysis uncovered a problem that, according to the management, could have put the company out of business. Thanks to the CS session, the problem was discovered in time. The issue could be resolved without any serious consequences.

One would think that would create an interest in using CS or other brainstorming techniques, but it did not.

[Kate Carruthers]

One important thing I've learned about brainstorming is to ensure that all different styles are accommodated. Thus introverts might participate better if given some time to think & write before sharing their ideas. While extroverts tend to want to bounce their ideas around with the group. Visual folks appreciate the space to draw their ideas before sharing. Critical to brainstorming success is good facilitation that looks after these aspects & sets/maintains effective rules of engagement.

[Jason Yip]

I'm wondering what you think about Edgecraft, the approach suggested by Seth Godin in Free Prize Inside.

[Dan Scherlis]

Coming from the online-games business, I had no idea that the very VALIDITY of brainstorming was in question. (You can envy my naivete, but it's lost now.)

I suggest that the crucial aspect of company culture that drives good/bad brainstorming might be the nature of communications: interactive versus linear. In the whiteboard-driven world of interactive media, we brainstorm productively and happily. In PowerPoint-based worlds, I've seen different results.

[Wally Bock]

One other thing I've found is that group brainstorming is the sort of thing that is very North American culturally. We like shouting out ideas. But people raised in other cultures may have trouble participating, meaning that their ideas don't get heard as much as us loud guys.

[Bobsutton]

Mark,

Thanks for writing, I found your post very balanced and in fact I likely did not put enough weight on the "cons" that listed on your post. I also was impressed the quality of the discussion in the comments, first rate stuff.

[Mark McGuinness]

Hi Bob,

Thanks for taking the trouble to respond to my post in such depth. I've added a link to your post at the end of mine.

I agree that it's essential to consider the people and larger processes involved when evaluating any technique. I imagine you could get the teams at IDEO or Pixar to play table tennis all the ukelele for an hour and they would probably come up with some great ideas!

You provided an excellent example when I was looking for someone to 'criticise the critics' so I'm glad you found my piece of interest.

[Bruce Post]

Remember Irving Janis, who wrote so much on "groupthink?" I imagine, Bob, he probably would agree with you: there are bad brainstorms and good ones. His analysis of the Kennedy Administration's decision-making involving the Bay of Pigs points to the disastrous consequences of bad groupthink or brainstorming. He then asserts that, later, the Kennedy group got it right with the Cuban missile crisis. They learned from their earlier mistakes in group decision-making and corrected them. In the final analysis, though, it comes back to integrity. Substance, which in this context is the willingness to be open, vulnerable and truthful, is the sine qua non in brainstorming. You can master the form, but without the substance, you end up engaging in what I call "Potemkin discussions" that give the appearance of good group dialogue.

[WDF]

I like brainstorming because I feed off of what others are saying. It makes me more effective when I can have the back and forth flow.

I have been in situations where the conditions were not right ... those that you mention regarding the company culture ... and we struggled in generating the back and forth flow of ideas.

Like all tools brainstorming has its place and it won't work for everything.