Brainstorm or Drainstorm?

What’s your opinion?

We’ve all heard that brainstorming is the best way to generate new ideas. You gather the team in a room and spit out ideas to find the very best ones. But does it work that way?

My experience is that it doesn’t work because nothing is as sensitive as a new idea. An idea is like a little baby that needs to be cared for and filled to see what it will become. In a large group, good ideas run the risk of being drowned out when the loudest bring their ideas forward – which often aren’t the best.
When Alex F. Osborne, in his book Applied Imagination, launched thoughts that later came to be called brainstorming, the idea was good. Come up with as many ideas as possible without being criticized.

But later research shows that we humans don’t like to stand out, so we keep the most outlier thoughts to ourselves. No one wants to be seen as odd.
If you look at what the research of the last 35 years says, it’s complicated. To sum it up, group brainstorming is not effective. It is more efficient to be and develop your own ideas, which you then get together and look at together. Then you get feedback on the group dynamics and can make better decisions about what is the best idea.

The research results point in slightly different directions, but in principle, they agree that the classic brainstorming does not work effectively.

What do you think? What is your experience?

If you want to know more, we recommend, for example:

Productivity Loss in Brainstorming Groups: A Meta-Analytic Integration by Brian Mullen and Craig Johnson Syracuse University, Eduardo Salas Naval Training Systems Center; Basic And Applied Social Psychology, 1991, 72(1), 3-23.

Productivity Loss In Brainstorming Groups: Toward the Solution of a Riddle by Michael Diehl and Wolfgang Stroebe Universität Tubingen, Germany; Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1987, Vol. 53, No. 3, 497-509.

Idea Generation and the Quality of the Best Idea by Karan Girotra INSEAD, Christian Terwiesch and Karl T. Ulrich University of Pennsylvania, 2010.

Working Paper; Beyond Productivity Loss in Brainstorming Groups: The Evolution of a Question by Wolfgang Stroebe, Bernard A. Nijstad and, Eric F. Rietzschel, 2014.

Alternating Individual and Group Idea Generation: Finding the Elusive Synergy by Runa Korde and Paul B. Paulus , The University of Texas at Arlington, 2016.

Brainstorm or Drainstorm? 

What’s your opinion?

We’ve all heard that brainstorming is the best way to generate new ideas. You gather the team in a room and spit out ideas to find the very best ones. But does it work that way?

My experience is that it doesn’t work because nothing is as sensitive as a new idea. An idea is like a little baby that needs to be cared for and filled to see what it will become. In a large group, good ideas run the risk of being drowned out when the loudest bring their ideas forward – which often aren’t the best.
When Alex F. Osborne, in his book Applied Imagination, launched thoughts that later came to be called brainstorming, the idea was good. Come up with as many ideas as possible without being criticized.

But later research shows that we humans don’t like to stand out, so we keep the most outlier thoughts to ourselves. No one wants to be seen as odd.
If you look at what the research of the last 35 years says, it’s complicated. To sum it up, group brainstorming is not effective. It is more efficient to be and develop your own ideas, which you then get together and look at together. Then you get feedback on the group dynamics and can make better decisions about what is the best idea.

The research results point in slightly different directions, but in principle, they agree that the classic brainstorming does not work effectively.

What do you think? What is your experience?

If you want to know more, we recommend, for example:

Productivity Loss in Brainstorming Groups: A Meta-Analytic Integration by Brian Mullen and Craig Johnson Syracuse University, Eduardo Salas Naval Training Systems Center; Basic And Applied Social Psychology, 1991, 72(1), 3-23.

Productivity Loss In Brainstorming Groups: Toward the Solution of a Riddle by Michael Diehl and Wolfgang Stroebe Universität Tubingen, Germany; Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1987, Vol. 53, No. 3, 497-509.

Idea Generation and the Quality of the Best Idea by Karan Girotra INSEAD, Christian Terwiesch and Karl T. Ulrich University of Pennsylvania, 2010.

Working Paper; Beyond Productivity Loss in Brainstorming Groups: The Evolution of a Question by Wolfgang Stroebe, Bernard A. Nijstad and, Eric F. Rietzschel, 2014.

Alternating Individual and Group Idea Generation: Finding the Elusive Synergy by Runa Korde and Paul B. Paulus , The University of Texas at Arlington, 2016.