Read on Twitter
I have a lot of thoughts on this topic as someone who teaches creative problem-solving and methodologies: a brief thread: https://twitter.com/jsstansel/status/1356409521682472962
First, @jsstansel is absolutely right. Thank you for your advocacy.
Second, I refuse to participate in on-the-spot brainstorming sessions. Brainstorming must have rules and limits to work against in order to innovate & ideate. Without rules and limits (in this context, authentic data).
If you throw out the rules defined by data and reality, you're wasting time as your ideas aren't defined by reality.
For a group to best brainstorm, they each need to spend time developing a thorough understanding of the rules. If they don't, brainstorming is carefree and potentially useless.
Things the group need to know: the box (a cube) - each side of the cube is a rule: fear, knowledge, complacency, assumptions, the rules, and habit. These defined walls apply to both YOU and your audience simultaneously.
If they can understand many if not all aspects of box in relation to themselves and their audience, you'll have a more productive session.
I suggest this because a common ground baseline is necessary for a problem-solving process that is both entry-level in terms of access but also human-centered in approach. The aspects of the box aren't just for creatives, everyone uses them - daily.
So in typical brainstorming fashion, you re-contextualize what is essentially your daily process to a more objective perspective as you solve problems for other people.
I believe that in-house teams absolutely need a standard baseline problem-solving process. If members used individually, then as a whole using the process the collected effort will be both augmented, efficient, and in some cases profound.
One thing to note about this though is that you can create a methodology that is low-entry and accessible and it still may not be for everyone. Team leaders, ideally, need to give room to members to take the base process and modify for their style.....
while also mentoring them along so that the results you get from everyone else (and in aggregate) are in alignment with the deviation style.
The value in exploration, in this sense, is that new thinking adds to the aggregate, even if there is a step that is silly or at first not-productive. Anyway, I digress from this.
Third, your brainstorming methodology needs to be able to be documented, digitally or on stick pads, or whatever. Document your data and add it to an aggregate of brainstorm sessions over a period of time.
This aggregate is essentially an idea base. You stockpile ideas and use them when the time is right. So many teams have to rapidly react and deploy with (sometimes) manic energy just to see their results fall flat.
Your idea base is full of ideas, tactics, strategies, that are hopefully build on authentic data but also represent the team as a whole. When the team's collective brainpower is represented in the ideas base, and those ideas are executed, watch morale and confidence rise.
The more brainstorming you do and add to your idea-base (evoking thoughts of Sherlock's 'mind palace' atm) the better prepared you'll be for your mar-comm works.
Fourth, don't just brainstorm serious things. Brainstorm silly things. Have fun. Be abstract. Problem: "my cat needs to wash the dishes. how do we make this happen?" I think you'll find that often brilliance lies in the absurd.
Whatever solution you came up with for your cat to wash dishes....may crossover into a huge recruitment campaign, or crisis-comms tactic, or fundraising epiphany.
Fifth, problem solving styles change over time. You'll find that your process, if used very consistently over a long period of time, may become stale. Redesign it. Bring more people into the dynamic to inject fresh thoughts. Use people in that have nothing to do w your work.
Sixth, if you use agencies as vendors for your work, they'll typically have you use their 'proprietary process' which can be good if it is designed with wisdom and human centeredness. My experience, they typically weren't until Design Thinking became a truly established practice
If you want to have a very effective problem-solving process utilizing Design Thinking, don't pretend or casually adapt the core techniques into your workflow based on your interpretation. Read the flipping books.
I've practiced DT techniques with all types of people. Corporate teams and CEOs, non-profit teams and Exec Directors, Mayors and town councils, small business owners and residents of all ages, high schoolers, and of course my college students. Core DT techniques work and work.
Seventh, I'm very passionate over how people solve problems and the quality of their methodologies - people will surprise you and when they have the right tools, they can do amazing things. Democratizing critical thinking strategies makes for better people in general.
My process put simply: receive, communicate, define, engage, research, create, critique, refine, pitch, revise, present, complete. Happy to clarify that. Thanks everyone.
