Participation level:
- High (Stakeholders participate in decision)
Innovation level:
- Low (Traditional)
Facilitator skill level, and other support required:
- Low (No special skills)
Can be used for:
- Engage community
- Discover community issues
Brainstorming aims to develop the broadest possible range of creative options,to evaluate these, and to select the best.
Brainstorming will offer better solutions to a community issue or proposal because a wider range of options has been canvassed.
- Can encourage creative solutions.
- Can serve as a warm-up exercise.
- Can replace conventional participation tools wheresuch tools are inappropriate.
- Can assist in developing unity between participants.
- Ideas are unrestrained and may not be achievable.
- Sessions may be difficult to record.
- Realistic outcomes are not guaranteed.
- Allow time to engage jury & facilitator, put together briefing papers and contact 'experts'.
- Jury can take up to four days to consider its 'verdict'.
Organizing Brainstorming
How many people to organize?
- Large (> 12 people)
- Medium (2-12 people)
- Individual
Time required:
- Short (< 6 weeks)
Cost:
- Low (< AUD$1,000)
- Select participants from as wide a range of disciplines with as broad a range of experience as possible. This brings many more creative ideas to the session.
- Select a leader for the session, who can
- outline any criteria that must be met;
- keep the session on course;
- encourage an enthusiastic, uncritical attitude among brainstormers; and
- encourage participation by all.
- Set times for the whole brainstorming session, and for generating ideas.
- Keep fresh ideas coming, and welcome creativity.
- Do not allow any one train of thought dominate for too long
- Do not criticise or evaluate during the brainstorming session. (Criticism stifles creativity and spoils the fun.)
- Record ideas no matter how unrealistic, until there are no more ideas, or the time allocated for generating ideas is up.
- Record all ideas on a whiteboard or projector so that all participants can see all the ideas.
- Encourage 'spark off' associations from other people's ideas, or combinations of ideas.
- Either, evaluate solutions at the end of the brainstorming session to agree on the most practical way forward, or
- Record the session either as notes, tape recording or video for later evaluation.