Definition:
Brainstorming is a group idea-generation technique intended to produce numerous alternatives in response to a defined question or problem. It was formalised and popularised by Alex F. Osborn and is based on separating initial idea generation from subsequent evaluation.
During the generation phase, judgement is deferred, quantity is encouraged, unconventional suggestions are welcomed and participants can combine or improve other people’s contributions. Brainstorming generates options, but it does not replace analysis or guarantee that a group will find the best solution.
How to run a brainstorming session
A session needs a specific question, an understandable working framework and someone to facilitate participation. The process can be organised into four stages:
- Preparation: defines the challenge, objective, available time, participants and method for recording every contribution. A briefing can provide context when the session belongs to a marketing or communications project.
- Generation: participants propose ideas without evaluating them during this phase. The objective is variety and quantity, including options that may initially appear difficult to apply.
- Organisation: after generation, the ideas are clarified, grouped and combined. Duplicates can be integrated without losing useful distinctions.
- Evaluation: alternatives are compared using defined criteria such as relevance, feasibility, impact, cost or available evidence. Selection takes place afterwards, not during generation.
The facilitator needs to prevent one person from dominating the conversation and allow time to think. An individual silent phase before sharing, or a written variation such as brainwriting, can broaden participation and reduce the blocking that occurs when only one person can speak at a time.
Scope of brainstorming
Brainstorming can bring together different perspectives, reveal associations between ideas and involve people with different knowledge. It can also allow an initial suggestion to inspire variations that may not have appeared in isolation.
Group participation does not remove bias. Fear of evaluation, pressure to agree, unequal effort or anchoring on early suggestions can reduce the diversity of ideas. Generation and selection therefore need to remain distinct, every contribution should be recorded and later assessment should use criteria related to the problem.
The outcome should not be judged only by the number of ideas. A session may produce many irrelevant options, while individual preparation can generate more developed alternatives. Combining individual work with group discussion can make use of both approaches.
Brainstorming may form part of a broader process such as design thinking, but the terms are not equivalent. Design thinking also includes user research, problem definition, prototyping and testing; brainstorming mainly covers the initial generation and development of alternatives.
Brainstorming applications
The technique can be used when a challenge is open-ended and exploring several possible responses is useful before making a decision:
- Marketing and communications: generates campaign approaches, messages, content or channels based on objectives and knowledge of the audience, such as a buyer persona.
- Products and services: explores features, names, experiences or improvements before assessing them against research, technical constraints and business priorities.
- Problem solving: identifies possible causes and courses of action in processes, operations or customer service without treating generated hypotheses as proven conclusions.
- Planning: develops scenarios, risks and potential actions that subsequently need to be tested against data, resources and assigned responsibilities.
In digital marketing, a session can broaden the range of creative options, but final decisions need to connect with strategy, available evidence and agreed evaluation criteria.