Have you noticed that your brainstorm sessions have been leaving you feeling more cloudy than before? There is a lot on your mind you need to work through but it feels stormier than it ever feels sunny up in your big
Well, maybe you’re not brainstorming as effectively as you could be! Let’s look at a few tried and true tactics that will help get your brainstorm session on its way to being a rewarding exercise for you and your company.
Set Goals – S.M.A.R.T Goals
Before any good brainstorming session you want to make sure you define what your goals for the session will be. If you head into a session without a clear idea of what the session is about, you will be setting yourself up for nothing more than wasted time.
One the best way to go about this is to outline your S.M.A.R.T Goals. These are goals that follow a guideline of being specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time bound.
Lets look at an example for a new company that wants to have a brainstorming session about logo design.
Specific: We will discuss ideas for our business’s logo.
Measurable: We will develop three solid ideas to create logos from.
Attainable: We will decide on the color-scheme for the logo and pass the ideas on to the design team.
Relevant: This logo will represent our company’s identity and help us stand out.
Time-Bound: We will decide on a finalized logo by the end of this week.
Try writing your goals for each session out before you start so that you know exactly what needs to get done!
Talk Your Ideas Out With Others
There is no denying that some great brainstorming happens on our own, but there is A LOT to be said about talking your ideas out with others. Not everyone in business has a team of people they can brainstorm with, so one of the best ways to get feedback about an idea or plan is to talk to your friends, family, mentors, or work associates, to see how your ideas sound out in the open. They might be able to give you some insight you hadn’t thought of before.
Write All Ideas Down. Even “Bad” Ones
You should always go into a brainstorming session with the motto: There are no bad ideas.
The key to brainstorming is to shoot for quantity. Just like a photographer may need to take hundreds of photos to get the perfect one, it may take a bunch of ideas before you come up with the one you’ve been searching for.
Plus, you never know when a “bad” idea will become a good one. That one idea may be the perfect thought for another project down the road!
Take Break!
Sometimes the best thing you can do is take a break. Get a drink, go for a walk, work on something else. Give your ideas time to settle and then come back to them when your brain is fresh. You’ll be surprised how much clearer your ideas are when they’ve had a chance to sit.
You can brainstorm and think until you pass out but that will only waste your time and your energy. So don’t be afraid to take a break so you can come back to your ideas full-force!