How To Lead Better Brainstorming Sessions

Get more ideas that will improve your team’s creativity and innovation.

Illustration by Michele Rosenthal

When you’re working within a fast-paced team, your day is full of problems to solve and decisions to be made:

• Your customers keep telling you that their problem is XYZ, and you’ve tried solutions A through D to fix that problem, but so far, those solutions aren’t entirely solving their problems.
• You need to figure out the best way to architect your app to give your customers the smoothest experience possible while using the least resources possible.
• You have to get that new feature out the door in the next four weeks, with minimal resources.
• And so on…

This is where brainstorming comes in.

The purpose of brainstorming is to create as many useful ideas in the shortest period of time possible.

It’s not just useful when you’re trying to figure out what kind of product to create — it can be helpful in all of the above scenarios and continue to be useful as your app takes off and your business grows.

So how can you run the most productive brainstorming sessions possible?

Brainstorming with your team: A checklist

First, identify the problem(s) you’re trying to solve, as accurately and concretely as possible.

Instead of starting with something like, “how can we make people happier?” begin with “what experience can we give people, via a mobile app, that will improve their day?”

Animation by Zanimator

Giving your team a framework for the kind of ideas you’re looking for will help them come up with more useful insights in the long run. It sounds counterintuitive, but research has shown more than…