Brainstorming
Brainstorming
A structured group technique for generating ideas without judgment, developed by advertising executive Alex Osborn in the mid-twentieth century. Osborn’s original four rules: (1) produce as many ideas as possible; (2) produce ideas as wild as possible; (3) build upon each other’s ideas; (4) avoid passing judgment during generation.
Scott Berkun notes in The Myths of Innovation that the term has been “abused and bastardized” — stripped of the discipline that made it effective. Osborn’s method was actually a three-phase process: fact finding (collecting data about the problem), idea finding (unconstrained exploration), and solution finding (developing promising ideas into actionable plans). Kyle mapped this in his margin notes as Disney’s Three Rooms.
The deeper point: Innovation is rarely blocked by a shortage of ideas; it’s blocked by environment and trust. “Only one of every three teams… has a culture of trust. Without trust, ideas do not go anywhere, even if someone finds the courage to mention them at all.” Brainstorming is a trust-requiring practice before it is an ideation technique.