Brainstorm A Little Easier With These 7 Tips

An idea is best mixed with other's ideas

We have our share of brainstorming in our Careers and with each session is a feeling of disappointment and frustration. It's difficult to come up with plan, especially when everybody couldn't agree on it.

Everybody brainstorms a little differently, some even have their own methods to techniques. I've compiled mine, it has proven to have helped me come up with specific solutions and action plans to problems and it is in my hope that it does the same for you.

Listed below are my brainstorming steps:

DEFINE THE PROBLEM
List down some rules that your solutions need to follow so that you don't waste time going overboard with things that could not help you.

BREAK IT DOWN
Make it easier to tackle by breaking it down into smaller bits,

MAKE IT PERSONAL
Think about how the problem affects you personally.

SEEK OTHER'S PERSPECTIVE
Try and find as many people as possible who might have input and see what they have to say.

DIVERGE BEFORE YOU CONVERGE
Breed a little conflict into the discussion when you can. One way to do this is to have everyone write down their ideas before the meeting starts so everyone doesn't rally around the first idea just to get out of the meeting quickly.

CREATE AN "IDEA RESUME"
An "idea resume" is a one-page document that breaks down the basics of a solution.

CREATE A PLAN TO LEARN
Start designing a way to test your ideas and write out what you hope to learn from those tests.

These are not the only ways to brainstorm, but these steps can be an effective foundation to a thought process that you want to establish.

Have fun brainstorming.