Ideas come in various degrees. Ideas that seem relevant, ideas that seem original, ideas that are both relevant and original. After a phase of creating ideas, we can start to evaluate them. The most common type of evaluation is seeing how well the ideas do at solving the problem at hand.

Eventually there will be ideas that are neither original nor relevant (relevant meaning the idea is an effective solution to the problem), relevant and original, or just one of either. In general this divides the pile of ideas into good, bad and Great Ideas.
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Brainstorming is without doubt the most commonly used technique to generate great ideas. But a common misconception is brainstorming is as straightforward as listing random thoughts and pick out the best of the bunch…

The goal of this article is to explore & explain the actual how and why of ‘the brainstorm’. How does it work and why is it such an effective method? For the conditions and rules of conducting a brainstorm see one of the previous articles: ‘The 10 commandments of brainstorming’.

Waves of inspiration

The goal of every brainstorm is to generate creative, new solutions to a problem. Ideally you have gathered a team of 4 to 10 people to participate in the brainstorm. You’ve appointed a reporter, a leader and the participants and are ready to go.

But where do you start, wand what exactly constitutes as a good brainstorm? Read the rest of this article »