Please write your favourite joke on a piece of paper and put it in the box provided

1
Whats Your Favourite Joke?

• Please write your favourite joke on a piece of
  paper and put it in the box provided
• Achtung! Well read some of these out so try not
  to be too offensive

2
Notebooks

• For the continuous assessment aspect of this
  course I would like you all to get a notebook in
  which to record the exercises we do in class, and
  other bits and pieces
• It has to last 12 weeks so try to get something
  sturdier thana refill pad
• I will ask you to hand these up at the end of
  the semester for marking

3
Brainstorming Topics

• We will be doing some brainstorming in this
  session so have a think about these topics as we
  go through the lecture
• Working for a large search engine company we have
  collected huge amounts of data on peoples search
  terms what can we do with this data?
• Easily distributed digital music is now a fact of
  life. As workers in a large music publishing
  company how can we turn this to our advantage?

4
Brainstorming Topics (cont)

• As facilitators of an M.Sc. level course in
  problem solving what methods of continuous
  assessment can we use to evaluate students?
• E-mail spam is now a huge problem. As developers
  in a security applications development company
  what can we do to solve this?

5
Problem Solving, Communication
InnovationBrainstorming
6
What Do We Know Already?

• What do you know about brainstorming already?

7
Contents

• In todays lecture we will take a look at the
  following
• Koinonia ancient brainstorming
• Origins of brainstorming
• Brainstorming rules
• Warming up for brainstorming
• Practicalities of brainstorming
• Post brainstorming
• Problems with brainstorming

8
Koinonia

• In ancient Greece Socrates and his
  contemporaries spent years freely meeting and
  conversing
• These dialogues helped shape Western
  civilisation!
• In these dialogues participants exchanged ideas
  freely without bitter argument
• This was done through the spirit of Koinonia
  which means spirit of fellowship

9
Principles of Koinonia

• Koinonia binds participants together through the
  following principles
• Establish dialogue
• The Greek origin of the word dialogue means
  talking through
• On the other hand the Latin origin of the word
  discussion means dash to pieces
• Be collegial
• Everybody is equal
• Everybodys ideas are equal

10
Principles of Koinonia (cont)

• Clarify your thinking
• Suspend all assumptions about ideas and about
  people
• Be honest
• Never hold back information
• The notion of collective intelligence

11
Relative Koinonia

• The physics giants Einstein, Heisenberg, Pauli
  and Bohr did the same thing
• For years they exchanged and dialogued about
  ideas which later became the foundations of
  modern physics
• Most physicists of the time argued over petty
  nuances of opinion and promoted their own ideas
  at the expense of others

12
The Geese And The V

• Why do geese fly in a V?
• As each goose flaps its wings it creates an
  uplift for the bird immediately behind it
• The V formation adds at least 70 greater flying
  range than if each bird flew alone
• Working together is a good idea!

13
Brainstorming

• Brainstorming (formalised in the early 1940s)
  carries on the spirit of Koinonia
• Brainstorming is a group technique for generating
  ideas in order to solve a problem
• It is not a full problem solving system, but can
  be a part of many such systems

14
Alex Osborne Father of Brainstorming

• Alex F. Osborne was, amongst other things, an
  advertising executive in Buffalo, New York in
  the 1930s/1940s for the BBDO company
• Also a lecturer and writer on imagination and
  creative thinking

"It is easier to tone down a wild idea than to
think up a new one."- Alex Osborne
15
Origins of Brainstorming

• While working for the advertising company BBDO,
  Osborne felt that conventional business meetings
  inhibited the creation of new ideas
• He proposed some rules designed to help stimulate
  idea creation in meetings
• No criticism of ideas
• Go for large quantities of ideas
• Build on each others ideas
• Encourage wild and exaggerated ideas

16
Origins of Brainstorming (cont)

• To think up was originally the term Osborne used
  to describe the process but in time it came to
  be known as brainstorming using the brain to
  storm a problem

A conference technique by which a group attempts
to find a solution for a specific problem by
amassing all the ideas spontaneously by its
members- Alex Osborn
17
Origins of Brainstorming (cont)

• The rules of brainstorming give people freedom
  from the inhibitions, nervousness and other
  negative feelings which usually accompany
  meetings
• Surprisingly, it has been found that quantity of
  ideas usually produces quality of ideas

Quality
Quantity
18
What Is Brainstorming Used For?

• Brainstorming has been used to develop the
  following
• Advertising campaigns
• Marketing strategy and methods
• Research and development procedures
• Physical products
• Written documents and articles
• Government policies
• Investment decisions
• New industries

19
Brainstorming Rules

• We will use a slightly altered set of Osbornes
  original brainstorming rules
• No judgement of ideas
• Go for large quantities of ideas
• Build on each others ideas
• Encourage wild and exaggerated ideas
• Every person and every idea is equal

20
Brainstorming Rules (cont)
No Judgement Of Ideas

• Dont say anything about ideas neither
  complement nor criticise
• There is no such thing as a bad idea!
• Even seemingly stupid ideas can spark off really
  good ones

21
Brainstorming Rules (cont)
Go For Large Quantities Of Ideas

• The more ideas at this stage the better
• Keep ideas short forget about details, just
  capture the essence

22
Brainstorming Rules (cont)
Build On Each Others Ideas

• Turn yes, but into yes, and
• Try to add extra thoughts to each idea (be
  careful not to comment though)
• Maybe combine several suggested ideas to generate
  a new one

23
Brainstorming Rules (cont)
Encourage Wild And Exaggerated Ideas

• No idea is too ridiculous
• Wild ideas often spark really practical ones
• Exaggerate ideas to the extreme

24
Brainstorming Rules (cont)
Every Person And Every Idea Is Equal

• Everybodys perspective is unique and so is
  useful
• Nobody owns their ideas once they are out on the
  table

25
Which Problems To Brainstorm About?

• Brainstorming is not ideal for all problems
• Remember the purpose of brainstorming is to
  generate ideas nothing else
• Use it for problems for which you need a lot of
  ideas
• New product development
• New market discovery
• Others?

26
Running A Brainstorming Session

• Brainstorming sessions have three phases
• Warm-up
• Brainstorming
• Post-brainstorming work

27
Warming Up For Brainstorming

• Before tackling the main problem in question a
  warm-up should be used to relax people and get
  creative juices flowing
• Some suggestions are
• One One One
• Walking in someone elses shoes
• Are you a hammer or a nail?
• Impossible hybrids
• Brainstorm about unrelated tasks

28
One One One

• Sometimes two disjoint concepts when put together
  form a readily understandable third concept
• Conference call, home page, party girl,
  religious right
• Have everybody think up a word with the same
  first letter as their last name
• Participants each paste their word to the their
  forehead and mingle freely in the room trying to
  create something new out of their word combined
  with other participants words

29
Walking In Someone Elses Shoes

• Ask all participants to take off their shoes and
  put them on the table in front of them
• Allow everybody to look at each other shoes
• Have people swap shoes try them on
• Have a competition to build the tallest shoe
  structure possible
• The artificial uncomfortableness of this
  situation can help to break down nervousness and
  bond a team

30
Are You A Hammer Or A Nail?

• Go around the room asking each person to describe
  themselves as either an X or a Y
• For example
• Are you a hammer or a nail?
• Are you a cloud or a rock?
• At work are you a tree or the wind?
• At meetings are you a handshake or a sandwich?
• At home are you a rug or a toaster?
• The more bizarre the pairings the better

31
Impossible Hybrids

• Pick random words from a collection and combine
  them to form impossible hybrids using
• An X that is also a Y
• For example
• A piece of furniture that is also a fruit
• A lampshade that is a book
• A food that is also a rock
• Try to describe each hybrid maybe even draw
  pictures of them

32
Crossbreeding

• Provide four boxes containing slips of paper with
  random names of plants, objects, animals and job
  descriptions
• Ask participants to draw slips and then make
  hybrids out of them
• For example
• Bird Supervisor
• Paperwork Key
• Try to describe what each hybrid would look like
  or do

• Customer Door
• Pony Photocopier

33
Brainstorming About Unrelated Tasks

• Simply brainstorm about tasks unrelated to the
  main focus of the session
• Nice general examples include
• How can we improve shoes?
• How can we combat the problems of graffiti?
• What if everybody had two thumbs how would that
  change the world?
• What if we had no cars?

34
Practicalities Of Brainstorming

• The following is a list of the practical points
  to keep in mind when running a brain-storming
  session
• A a central person (the facilitator) will
  coordinate the proceedings, introduce the purpose
  of the brainstorming session and outline the
  rules
• Try to ensure everyone is familiar with the
  problem to be discussed before the session
• Gather a group of between four and ten people
  together in one room

35
Practicalities Of Brainstorming (cont)

• Arrange participants around a circular table
• Have plenty of easily accessible pens, paper
• Ensure everybody is familiar with the rules - put
  them on posters on the walls of the room
• Try to have one person record all ideas, but
  participants should also record ideas to ensure
  nothing is lost
• Perform some warm-up exercises to relax
  participants and get the energy flowing
• Open the session proper by asking for as many
  ideas and suggestions as possible

36
Practicalities Of Brainstorming (cont)

• When the session hits natural lulls try to spark
  it again by suggesting people throw out
  outlandish ideas or build on an existing idea
• Dont be afraid to take breaks
• Eventually the session will fizzle out of its own
  accord try not to force sessions to last longer
  than it should
• When the session comes to a close thank everybody
  for taking part
• Gather up the notes of all participants these
  belong to the session

37
Post-Brainstorming Work

• The purpose of brainstorming is to generate ideas
  to solve a particular problem
• What should you do with all of these ideas?
• An easy scheme is to arrange ideas into three
  lists
• The next step is to implement the excellent ideas
  and investigate the interesting ones

38
When Brainstorming Goes Bad

• Brainstorming can go wrong
• Some common problems are
• People fail to follow the rules
• Have the facilitators enforce the rules
• People do not come up with a good flow of ideas
• Facilitators should prompt participants with
  questions, springboard ideas etc
• Try using simple creative techniques within
  brainstorming
• Ensure to warm up fully

39
When Brainstorming Goes Bad (cont)

• Nothing appears to happen after brainstorming
• Bad managers use brainstorming to pretend
• Make sure to follow up brainstorming
• Brainstorming is unfocused
• Try to brainstorm about specific problems
• Facilitators should try to keep the session on
  track
• The most difficult part of brainstorming is
  creating the correct atmosphere
• Dont be afraid to try creative things like
  playing music, brainstorming outside etc

40
Summary

• The purpose of brainstorming is to generate new
  ideas around a problem
• The brainstorming rules are
• No judgement of ideas
• Go for large quantities of ideas
• Build on each others ideas
• Encourage wild and exaggerated ideas
• Every person and every idea is equal
• Brainstorming should follow three phases warm-up
  brainstorm post-brainstorm

41
Lets Give It A Try

• We will try a brain storming session about one of
  the following topics
• Working for a large search engine company we have
  collected huge amounts of data on peoples search
  terms what can we do with this data?
• Easily distributed digital music is now a fact of
  life. As workers in a large music publishing
  company how can we turn this to our advantage?

42
Lets Give It A Try (cont)

• As facilitators of an M.Sc. level course in
  problem solving what methods of continuous
  assessment can we use to evaluate students?
• E-mail spam is now a huge problem. As developers
  in a security applications development company
  what can we do to solve this?

43
Process

• Warm-ups
• Jokes
• Are you a hammer or a nail?
• Brainstorm
• Post-brainstorm work
• Organise ideas

44
So?

• What did you think of it?

45
No Judgement Of Ideas
Go For Large Quantities Of Ideas
Build On Each Others Ideas
Encourage Wild And Exaggerated Ideas
Every Person And Every Idea Is Equal
46
Clarify Your Thinking