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Quality Management Tools
Brainstorming
Brainstorming is a very powerful creative thinking and idea generating technique. It is a
decision-making process used by groups to help generate a large number of ideas through
an interactive process. The main goals of this technique are to help break out of
habit-bound thinking and to produce a set of ideas where there is more than one choice
when making a decision.
Guidelines
Brainstorming is useful for attacking specific rather than general problems and where a
collection of good, fresh, new ideas, rather than judgment or decision analysis, are needed.
(Harris, 2002) There are some basic guidelines that should be adhered to for the most
successful results.
Brainstorming can take place either individually or in a group. Four to seven members in a
group are thought to be ideal. After the group has been assembled, the leader should make
sure that all members understand the objective of the brainstorming session. Once this has
been established, encouragement for active participation from all members and
development of a high-energy and enthusiastic environment should be the agenda. To keep
the mental flow going, the group should not stop to discuss, criticize, or compliment the
ideas as they are presented. Because this is a creative thinking technique, encouragement
for far-fetched ideas and thinking outside the box should be an important goal. This also
allows others in the group to expand and build on the ideas of the group members. It is
crucial to record all of the ideas exactly as they are presented and generate as long of a list
as possible.
With the free association phase of brainstorming, the ideas are usually generated very
rapidly at first, but after a while, the ideas will begin to slow. The group should avoid
stopping when ideas begin to slow. To help this from happening, there are two techniques
that will help get the process going again. The first technique is lateral thinking, which is
also known as random stimulation. Random stimulation is most useful if an individual or
group are stuck and have not been able to progress on the brainstorming session. It is a
way of jump-starting idea generation by making use of a random piece of information,
such as a word taken from a dictionary or book. This word is used to act as a trigger to
change the thought patterns and stimulate the flow of ideaswhen a mental block occurs.
The second technique is vertical thinking. With vertical thinking, the group will build on
