While brainstorming is an organized effort to get your team coloring outside the lines, it should also be a good time. Throw in a couple of creative techniques to gamify the process a little bit. Here are a few ideas.
1. Disruptive brainstorming
You can do this: With a team
What you’ll need:
- Disrupt cards
- Whiteboard
- Markers
- Sticky notes
- Timer
How it works: Disruptive brainstorming is a great tool for generating as many ideas as possible and then finding the best ones within a certain set of constraints.
There’s quite a bit to it (and you can get the full rundown in this playbook), but the gist is that you should have your team break into groups, and have each group brainstorm as many ideas within a theme as possible. For example, how can we increase signups to our newsletter list? Groups will write their ideas on sticky notes and hang them on their whiteboard.
Then, each person walks around the room, going to each group’s board and removing the ideas they don’t support. They’ll throw these ideas to the floor – literally.
From there, you’ll move into disruptive brainstorm loops that last 10 minutes each. You’ll add new disrupt cards, move team members between different groups, and come up with as many ideas as possible within the constraints dictated by the disrupt card. For instance, if you pull the “limited access” disrupt card (which pushes the idea that people love exclusivity), how can you make your newsletter more selective? Should it be a paid membership? Should it offer discounts or content that nobody else gets?
After doing that, you weed through all of the ideas again. It’s fun, it’s team-focused, and it gets people moving around, so they aren’t falling asleep at the conference room table.
2. Wishing
You can do this: Alone or with a team
What you’ll need:
How it works: One of the characteristics of brainstorming is that it gives you a chance to think beyond limitations and come up with your most dream-worthy solutions to problems – you know, if resources and budget weren’t an issue.
That’s what the wishing technique is all about: reaching for the stars. For example, if you’re planning your annual client lunch, what’s your dream venue? (top of the Empire State Building) Who would you love to have speak? (Michelle Obama) What would you serve as the meal? (Kobe beef steak) Go ahead and dream big.
When you all have your wishes, share them with the group and talk about how your ideas might not be that far-fetched. How could you actually make them a reality? You might be surprised by what you come up with.
3. Forced connections
You can do this: With a team
What you’ll need:
- Random objects
- Pencils
- Paper
How it works: Sometimes you just need to get your team’s neurons firing – even if it has nothing to do with your end goal or project.
Try this: bring a bag of random objects to your next brainstorming session. Pull out two or more items and challenge the team to come up with all the ways those things could be related to each other.
It may not have anything to do with, well, anything. But, figuring out how an umbrella could possibly be related to catnip is bound to awaken your team’s inventive side.
4. Team brainwriting
You can do this: With a team
What you’ll need:
How it works: You can think of this brainstorming technique sort of like a big game of Telephone. Each team member writes a few ideas on a piece of paper.
Pass those papers around and have each person add their own ideas, using the original idea as their inspiration. Once each slip of paper has gone around once, it’s time to discuss.
Not only is it fun to see what everybody comes up with and how ideas build upon each other, but this type of brainstorming format gives everyone a chance to actively participate – whether they’re introverts or extroverts.
5. Role playing
You can do this: With a team
What you’ll need:
- Bag or a hat
- Slips of paper
- Pencil
How it works: It’s human nature to get stuck in our own perspectives, but role playing can help you think about things in new ways by putting yourself in someone else’s shoes.
Bring a hat or bag filled with slips of paper into your next brainstorming session. On each slip, write somebody’s name. It could be the names of customers, board members, celebrities, historical figures, etc.
Have people pull out a slip of paper one at a time and try to come up with ideas as if you’re the person named on the paper. How would Abraham Lincoln increase paid app downloads? What about Oprah? It’s a great way to step away from your own biases and shake things up!
6. “What if” brainstorming
You can do this: Alone or with a team
What you’ll need:
How it works: Sometimes you just need a breather, a moment to think about a situation in an entirely different way.
That’s when it’s time to ask a lot of hypothetical questions in the form of “what if?” For example, what if the problem were worse? Or, what if it was happening to a different team? Or at a totally different time? What if it wasn’t happening at all?
Having an open conversation about these sorts of questions can encourage some serious out-of-the-box solutions and keep your team from getting too stuck in their own opinions.
7. Improv games
You can do this: With a team
What you’ll need:
- Depends on your chosen game
How it works: Maybe you just need to get your team’s brains warmed up, ready to work, and used to thinking on their feet. Improv games are a lighthearted and often hilarious way to get your team to open up.
Try these ideas: Tell a story a word at a time by going around in a circle. Or play “family portrait” where groups have 10 seconds to pose for a family portrait based on a prompt, for example, “like a family of gymnasts” or something equally silly. Or assign people characters to act out a scene and then require them to switch characters whenever someone yells, “Switch!”
Check out more improv games to try out with your team.
Even something as simple as having team members start your session with an embarrassing story can put your team in the right headspace to start openly sharing some fresh ideas.