Brainstorming is one of the most common tools used to help creative thinking, whether you're doing it on your own or with other people, watch the videos below to learn more.
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What is it?
Watch this short film to find out what brainstorming is.
Doing it on your own
If you prefer creating ideas digitally here are a few apps that you can use:
- GitMind Mind Map
- Mindly
- SimpleMind
Doing it in a group
Brainstorming is useful to do on your own, but it is also great to do with others in a group. You’ll probably find you need to do this at college or university and definitely when you start work.
The great thing about coming up with ideas in a group is that everyone sees things differently and brings something fresh to the mix. To make group brainstorming work it’s good to use a technique that everyone understands.
Here’s a couple you could try:
What next?
If you have been using Brainstorming to come up with an idea, whether it be for college, university or work you now need to decide which idea to take forward.
A technique called ‘Select the hits’ is great for this because it is anonymous, and everyone gets a say.
Try and get a mixed group of people for this if possible.
Explain to them the aim of your ideas, and on what basis you’d like them to vote. Just saying the ‘best’ idea might not be specific enough. You might want them to vote for the ‘quickest idea to set up’ or ‘the one that would make the most money’.
Now get each person to decide in silence which they want to vote for, you might want to give more than one vote each. Give each idea a number so they can easily write down the one they want to vote for. Or their top 2 if you have given more than one vote each.
You should now have a winner. If you have a tie, you could do another vote between those ideas.
It’s always good to follow this up with a discussion around why people chose that idea.
Taking things further
Now you’ve got your idea you may need to convince people outside of your group/team how great it is. This is where your pitching skills come in, you can learn more about pitching here.
Want to learn more?
Check out the other resources on the Learning with CareerSense pages.