Brainstorming Software - Create mind maps (graphical representations of thought processes) for brainstorming, problem solving, rational analysis, and decision marking.
Brainstorming often gets a bad reputation because sessions sometimes generate humdrum ideas and tend to be dominated by higher-ranking or more outspoken participants. But that doesn’t have to be the case. Here are six steps to organize a winning brainstorming session. The first step should be to.
What Is Brainstorming
Brainstorming is a creativity technique in which ideas are generated in order to solve a problem. The main result of a brainstorm session is a solution to a problem. The solution can be an idea which is a complete solution to the problem. It can be a list of ideas, leading to an approach to a subsequent solution of the problem. Or it can be a list of ideas resulting into a plan to find the final answer. Brainstorming was originated by Alex Osborn. A good brainstorming diagram is an excellent tool to help your team arrive at the best ideas and plans. Brainstorming diagrams help you develop any system of related ideas or information by showing interrelationships among topics in a hierarchy. They improve clear associative thinking and communication, which encourages creativity and problem solving.
Brainstorming Software
MindMaster is a quick and easy mind mapping software for creating great-looking mind maps (graphical representations of thought processes) for brainstorming, problems solving, rational analysis, tasks managing, notes taking and decision marking.
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Like the traditional brainstorming, you can record your ideas one by one on this collection board.
The font size and the width of the collection board are alterable.
You can hide the collection board when you don't need it.
Ideas can be marked as different color.
The color can be customized.
You can delete ideas in batches of the same color.
Color pencil, rectangle, ellipse are available for you to use.
The laser pen can be used as the moving cursor.
You can clear the marks with the eraser.
You can set a time for the brainstorming.
You can hide the timer form the canvas.
How to Proceed a Brainstorming With MindMaster?
1. The Preparation
Open MindMaster and start 'Brainstorming' function.
2. Write Down The Topic
Brainstorming is a full-screen mode, the ideas board opens automatically on the left side. Write down the topic on the canvas and start timing. We take 'how to do a market analysis' for example.
3. Collect Ideas to The Collection Board
The host announces the begin of brainstorming and everyone expresses themselves freely within a limited time. During this time host records everyone's ideas on the left side ideas collection zone. Also, if necessary, the host can mark ideas with different colors vary from participants.
4. Filter and Combine Ideas
Combine the related ideas together and delete some repeating and impossible options. Analyze and discuss the ideas and then to divide them into different groups. To learn more about How to Run a Brainstorming Session: A Step-by-Step Guide.
Examples of Brainstorming Diagram
The following are some examples created by Edraw MindMaster.
Who Will Use the Brainstorming
New product development - obtaining ideas for new products and making improvements to existing products
Business planning - develop and improve product ideas.
Team building - generates sharing and discussion of ideas while stimulating participants to think
Advertising - developing ideas for advertising campaigns
Problem solving - issues, root causes, alternative solutions, impact analysis, evaluation
Process management - finding ways of improving business and production processes
Project Management - identifying client objectives, risks, deliverables, work packages, resources, roles and responsibilities, tasks and issues
Brainstorming Can Be Acted as a Supplement For
Individual ideation: by means of generating a maximum number of potentially usable ideas in a minimum of time.
A business conference: stimulate creative thinking in a judicial and relatively unproductive atmosphere.
Creative training: brainstorming improves the creative attitude towards solving problems and improves the creative ability in groups and individual.
Brainstorming for Problem Solving
Improve initiative: During a brainstorm session, participants are encouraged to constantly throwing their ideas, to take initiative all the time. This initiative can last even after the session.
Improve creative thinking: Participants are encouraged to look from a creative perspective to the problem and the power of association is used to create ideas.
Improve morale: The participants work together as a team to find a solution to a problem and every participant is encouraged to take initiative.
These two factors can improve the morale of the team and its members.
Have more FUN: Most of the participants like the interactive and creative atmosphere in which problems are solved and creativity is enhanced.
All these uses are supported by Edraw MindMaster, making it the ideal productivity software for your brainstorming and creative, radiant thinking needs.
Other Relative Links
Team brainstorming seems like a good idea--at least, on paper. What usually happens is this: the company is experiencing a tough problem that no single person seems able to solve, so someone decides that more minds means more processing power, and before you know it you're all gathered in the conference room.
One or two people churn outbad idea after bad idea, while everyone else stares at the wall or multitasks. There are no major breakthroughs and most of you are irritated at the waste of time.
Brainstorming: productive or unproductive?
You might be tempted to say thatcollective brainstorming itself is the problem--that there's no easy way to force ideas. Research does suggest that some of the best ideas are ones that come from a flash of inspiration, usually randomly, and usually alone.
However, the cumulative work of team brainstorming adds a few new dimensions--such as idea revision and blending,occasionally referred to as 'idea sex'--that compensate for the natural disadvantages of solo idea generation. Accordingly, team brainstorming is not a waste of time--it just needs to be implemented more effectively.
No matter how much you dress it up, a 'team brainstorming' session is just a meeting, and meetings are dangerously vulnerable tobreaches of personal productivity. Accordingly, one of the best ways to hold better brainstorming sessions is to hold better meetings in general.
The main ways to 'fix' brainstorming sessions are to rely more on individual, random idea generation and to host better meetings in general. These strategies will help you get there:
Your first job is to choose the right people for the meeting. If you fill it with people unrelated to the discussion, they're not going to be invested and they're not going to participate. More isn't always better when it comes to meetings. Eliminate anyone who isn't at least invested in the discussion at hand, then start thinking about each individual's track record of participation. You want people who are creative, vocal, and willing to discuss problems openly--anyone else will only drag your meeting's productivity down.
2. Know the goals beforehand--and give people time.
Good ideas don't show up spontaneously when your brain is put under pressure. They do better when yougive them time and allow them to marinate. Give your employees a detailed description of the problem and schedule the meeting at least several days in advance, with the requirement that each employee come to the meeting with some pre-cooked ideas. This will save time at the meeting, and hopefully give you better ideas to serve as the foundation for your discussion. The more time you give people the better, so if you can give them a week or more to reflect on the problem, do it.
As a rule,shorter meetings are more effective. The modern tradition is to schedule every meeting to last an hour, thanks to the convenience of Outlook and other email/calendar management apps. However, a faster session will require people to come up with ideas more quickly, and will prevent people from losing energy or motivation during the session. You don't have to go crazy--half an hour for complex problems and 15 minutes for shorter ones should serve you well. Remember, you can always go over on time or schedule a follow-up if there are leftover ideas to explore. It might even be good to give each individual more time to think separately.
You chose these people for a reason--you know them to be creative thinkers with the capacity for idea generation and active discussion. There's no excuse for people not participating in the meeting. If you have to, go around the room to each person, or instill some other rule or structure that forces people to contribute. The only reason to have a brainstorming session is to facilitate a live conversation--without participation, you might as well not have the meeting. Something is always better than nothing, which brings me to my final strategy.
Often, 'good' ideas are merely the natural result ofhaving created many ideas. There's no one person, place, or method that inherently produces 'better' ideas; however, there are opportunities that can create more ideas, and if only one percent of ideas are good, having more ideas will naturally lead you to having more 'good' ideas. This is a long way of saying there shouldn't be a heavy distinction between bad ideas and good ideas--encourage all ideas from all of your employees, and you'll naturally end up with better ideas by the end.
Using these strategies, you should start to see more creativity and overall productivity in your team brainstorming sessions. Once you stop forcing the flow of ideas and start encouraging more unique participation, the difference will be unmistakable. Also, don't be afraid to take baby steps--it's perfectly fine to implement ideas one at a time to see how your team responds, and you always have time and room to change back if necessary.