Why brainstorming doesn’t work and what to do instead
Hi there, it’s Adam from Untools,
Most brainstorming meetings are where good ideas go to die. They have a worthy goal: quickly get the best ideas from people. The problem is that the way those meetings are usually run fails to produce the best ideas from everyone.
In this newsletter, we’ll look at the why traditional brainstormings don’t work, and how the right facilitation can help you get more out of them.
Science of brainstorming
Your typical brainstorming meeting usually follows like this: a group of people gathers, a problem is presented or discussed and then people are asked to voice their ideas.
It’s in that moment that group dynamics come into play and the meeting goes downhill. More senior and more extroverted people feel more confident to speak up, sometimes over each other. Some people keep silent in fear of their ideas being judged or thinking others will contribute ideas anyway. Already voiced ideas influence what others think and what they’re comfortable sharing. And most ideas get lost because nobody’s writing them down.
Research backs this: A meta-analysis of 20 studies (Mullen, Johnson & Salas, 1991) found that brainstorming groups consistently underperform individuals working alone in both quantity and quality of ideas. The bigger the group, the worse the productivity loss. And the effect is also amplified when a person of authority (like a CEO or senior leader) is in the room.
There are really 3 key problems with traditional brainstorming:
Self-censoring in the presence of authority or due to fear of judgement.
Production blocking since only one idea can be expressed out loud at a time.
Social loafing: people thinking they don’t need to contribute in a group because others will (and the bigger the group, the bigger this effect gets).
How to facilitate better brainstorming sessions
When we look at those key problems that brainstorming research highlights, we can reverse-engineer a better approach:
Keep groups smaller (4 to 6 people) to minimise social loafing and social dynamics.
Remove authority and/or create psychologically safe space to minimise self-censoring.
Write ideas instead of voicing them to avoid production blocking and capture significantly more (and better) ideas.
It’s clear that the key to better brainstorming sessions is more skilful facilitation.
There are two specific techniques that you can try during your next brainstorming session that take advantage of the approach outlined above. They’ll help you get more out of those meetings.
Brainwriting
Instead of asking people to just say their ideas, structure the session into a few parts:
Ask people to write down their ideas individually in silence.
Gather all the ideas and present them anonymously. Run a quick voting session to circle out the most promising ideas. Everyone’s vote is the same.
Discuss and refine the most promising ideas in the group.
This process enables you to capture many more ideas that would otherwise get lost. Ideas are anonymous to avoid fear of judgement. And everyone’s voice has the same weight when generating ideas.
Reverse brainstorming
Another technique that can create more psychological safety in the group and unblock creative ideas is reverse brainstorming. In its essence, it uses inversion to flip the dynamic and generate ideas for how to worst solve the problem. You can then look for the opposites of all the bad ideas.
Here’s how you can run it:
Invert the problem: For example, instead of asking “How might we improve communication within our remote team?”, you ask people to “How might we break down the communication within our remote team?”
Use brainwriting so everyone writes their ideas down. In our example, people might write:
Never document anything – keep all important decisions in people's heads
Schedule all meetings during different people's lunch breaks and never record them
Reverse the ideas to find solutions to the original problem:
Keep a log of important decisions
Record key meetings and share summaries async
There are a few reasons why reverse brainstorming works well:
Creates psychological safety: There’s less fear of judgement because everyone is coming up with bad ideas.
Invites more creative ideas: The negative lens often lets people be more imaginative and more engaged.
Identifies root causes: The “bad” ideas can actually be the root causes or effects of the problem people have experienced.
Try reversing the problem next time you run a brainstorming session. You’ll get better engagement and more ideas.
Learn more facilitation techniques to ace your meetings
Tomorrow, Untools Vault members will get a facilitation toolkit that will help you get the most out of your meetings. It will include:
Best practices for good facilitation
9 specific techniques with a decision guide for when to use which
Extra facilitation tips for handling common challenges
Printable reference cards in PDF
Vault members also get toolkits for decision-making, problem-solving, AI collaboration, and more. Lifetime access, no subscription.
Have a great week,
Adam
Reverse brainstorming — cool idea to try