Before You Brainstorm, Pre-storm
Friday, October 2, 2009 at 3:18PM 
ONE OF THE MOST EFFECTIVE THINGS I’ve ever done in facilitating brainstorms is to break the briefing stage completely away from the brainstorm itself, and to turn it from a passive experience (“was I supposed to read something?”) to an active experience (“I’m invested in the outcome”).
THE PROBLEM: The “Lamestorm”
According to my informal surveys, the questions I get at my training sessions, and personal experiences, one of the things brainstorm participants are most frequently annoyed by is the amount of time it takes to get through the briefing before the brainstorm itself can begin. You know the drill. Most of the time you get an email inviting you to a brainstorm and it contains either a couple lines about the assignment, or a half dozen attachments of misc. “background materials” that are a pain to get through. If you’re lucky, your facilitator has drafted a short brief to give you the essentials.
You show up to the brainstorm and half of the people haven’t read the brief (and certainly not the stack of backgrounders) so they’re cramming while people assemble. Except some of the people assemble later than others, so even if everyone was prepared – which they’re not – It’s already five or ten minutes after. Eventually, whoever’s leading the session kicks things off.
“Has everyone read the brief I sent around?”
Uhm. No.
So now there’s the quick recap. And that takes another five minutes. But then people have questions, so there’s another five or ten minutes of clarifications and referring people to the brief they were supposed to read before they came.
Tick tock. Twenty — maybe 30 — minutes into the hour that had been set aside for the brainstorm you’re actually ready to get going on ideas. A few people have to leave early, and by the time the last five minutes is spent on the wrap-up, next steps and assignments, you’ve netted a solid 20 minutes or so of true brainstorm time. If you’re lucky.
Now I’ve been the offender as well as the offended, so I understand all the very real reasons things tend to deteriorate to this state, but there is a better way.
THE SOLUTION: The Pre-storm
Just as an essential characteristic of good brainstorming is to separate divergent from convergent thinking (idea generation versus judgment), it’s just as necessary to separate the briefing from the brainstorming. This is not just a matter of compliance, to ensure people are prepared. Rather it’s a very modest investment in effectiveness.
(Download “Before You Brainstorm, Pre-Storm” essential tips)
The reason we separate idea generation from judgment is because they’re two different mental processes, each of which inhibits the other. Attempting to do both at the same time dilutes your ability to do either very well. Likewise, gathering and absorbing information to be used for brainstorming is a different mental process than using that information to generate ideas. The first calls for orderly organization of facts to allow the mind to sufficiently understand the objective, resources and parameters for the assignment. The second calls for “combinatorial play” – Einstein’s term for seeking, breaking and creating patterns among various elements of information.
So, that’s why. Here’s how.
First, identify a productive cross-section of people you want to include then schedule two sessions, the pre-storm and the brainstorm. Invite the participants, making it clear that people can’t participate in one without participating in the other. Insisting on the commitment immediately elevates people’s perception of the project. If it’s not “hey, anyone who’s available, meet in the conference room in an hour for a brainstorm” it must be important, right?
Schedule the pre-storm for one to two days in advance of the brainstorm. Try mightily to avoid having it the same day as the brainstorm. The time in between the two sessions is critically important. First, it allows the definition of the challenge to sink in, and second, it will be nearly impossible for people to avoid generating ideas, even if it’s at a subconscious level. I’ve seen time and time again how this jump starts a brainstorm. There’s an additional benefit when the participants raise good questions you don’t have the answer to. It allows you time to go back to the client and get the answers.
Now carefully plan your briefing. Divide your time into two parts: first, an organized, concise, efficient, but detailed presentation of the assignment, second, questions and answers. Provide essential information in the form of a thoughtfully written briefing document, not in a mass of re-purposed presentations, research papers, and emails. That’s stuff for the core account team to get intimate with. The job of the brainstorm team is to be extraordinarily focused on generating ideas around a specific challenge.
As you deliver the briefing, pretend you’re in a military briefing scene in a war movie. Ever notice how crystal clear those scenes are? Here’s our objective. Here’s what we’ve got to work with. Here’s your individual mission. Here’s what’s at stake. That’s the kind of intensity and focus you want to create. The more in command of the briefing you appear to be – indeed, are – the more serious your participants will take things. At the outset, you’ll need to help people understand that this isn’t the brainstorm. In fact, you may have to adamantly insist that you don’t want to hear any ideas in the pre-storm. You want people focused on listening, absorbing, understanding the briefing information. For that same reason, don’t accept questions while you’re doing your upfront briefing. You don’t want people thinking ahead of you. You only want active listening. Then, only when you’re done, do you shift into Q&A time.
For most assignments, an hour-long pre-storm should be sufficient, but take the time you need. Remember your goal is to go into the brainstorm with a team of absolutely focused, informed and prepared thinkers. If something’s fuzzy, clear it up now.
End the pre-storm with a three-part assignment for each participant:
- Re-review the written brief before the brainstorm and let your mind start working on ideas.
- Raise any additional questions that occur to you before the brainstorm.
- Come to the brainstorm prepared to share at least one idea, observation or insight right off the bat.
THE RESULT: Efficiency, Productivity, Positive Attitudes
The pre-storm produces dramatic changes. Because participants have gone through the briefing, they’re much more invested in the brainstorm and are less likely to be late, blow it off, or remain quiet throughout. You’ll find the brainstorm will feel practically turbo-boosted from the beginning. Without having to spend time on the briefing, you’ll be able to dedicate the full session to idea generation. And because an explicit expectation was for people to come prepared with at least a single idea, observation or insight, you can conduct a rapid fire collection of those ideas and get a high volume of thoughts up on the board almost immediately. That will automatically lead to builds and combinations, which are the fuel of brainstorm momentum.
I hope you’ll try pre-storming and follow these suggestions closely. I can honestly say that every time I’ve used this approach the groups have been rewarded with stunning increases in output. And candidly, they have a better time. People are happier to be a part of this process. They would rather spend two hours well than one hour poorly.
And that’s an important point. It may seem like a lot of extra work, but leading good creative processes requires effort, and I promise the increased results you’ll see from the pre-storm approach will far offset the modest additional time commitment it takes.
Good luck! And please let me know how this works for you.
© 2009 John Armato
Reader Comments (2)
Thanks for giving this creative solution to a problem people have in generating creative solutions. I'm going to try this before our next brainstorming session.
Excellent. Thanks, Rodney. I'd be really interested to hear how it works for you or what changes/additions you make to the process. I'm always in need of real-life examples to use in my presentations. Thanks again. -- John