<Details

Why?

Generate and develop new ideas.

How?

Bring people together to spark creativity and use a creativity technique to ensure a creative flow among the participants. Accept any ideas; filtering can be done in a later step. Build upon each other’s ideas, even bad ones. Avoid idea killers like early criticism.

Ingredients

• An activity plan.
• A shared problem statement and rules.
• An anything goes mindset: bad ideas also count as a contribution.

In practice

Companies use brainstorming techniques like nominal group technique or directed brainstorming.

Phase(s) of use

In the following project phase(s) brainstorm can be used:

• Problem definition
• Analysis