Brainstorming Techniques for Better Teamwork

This person will be responsible for leading the brainstorming session and guiding the conversation. Their most important responsibilities are keeping the group on topic and ensuring everyone gets an equal chance to share their ideas.

Every brainstorming session should have a goal. Are you solving a problem, analyzing a concept, generating new ideas, or doing something else entirely? Whatever your goal is, having a clear one prevents the distraction that’s likely to arise from the flow of conversation. 

Brainstorming works best when people can build off the ideas of others, so make sure to visually capture ideas as they’re shared for everyone to see and be inspired by. In person, you can use a whiteboard to record and display ideas, but how can you be visual when your team is brainstorming virtually? Online collaboration tools like Gliffy are the perfect alternative.

Mind mapping helps you illustrate and connect your ideas as they come. You might think of it as the ultimate brainstorming tool for this reason. It’s quick, easy, and visual. 

Whether it’s on paper, a whiteboard, or online, mind maps are the perfect way to create an organized record of your brainstorm session as it’s happening. 

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If you have a team that’s always asking questions, starbursting is the perfect technique for you. This technique is all about asking questions — specifically questions that start with who, what, when, where, why, or how.

Product teams often use this method to analyze every angle of a new project, but it can be useful for teams of any kind that are starting new projects, from marketing to finance and everything in between.

If your team is dealing with a problem that just doesn’t seem to go away, the 5 Whys is the brainstorming technique you’ll want to use. It helps you identify the root cause of an issue so you can take steps to ensure it doesn’t happen again.

This technique is applicable to any type of team, because regardless of function or industry, every team has problems that need to be solved.

Concept mapping is one of the broadest and most versatile brainstorming techniques. It’s about connecting ideas to visualize relationships, and it’s useful for documentation as well as for forming new ideas.

There are several different types of concept maps you can create, and the best fit depends on which ideas and relationships you’re discussing.

One of the most important analytical techniques for businesses is SWOT analysis. It’s a key business exercise that helps you gain a holistic view of where your business stands by identifying internal and external positives and negatives. 

As a business leader, this is an exercise you’ll likely revisit many times, and use your findings as a foundation for other goals, plans, and analysis exercises.

How To Do a SWOT Analysis

Another important brainstorming technique for business development and strategic planning is gap analysis. 

The goal of this exercise is to compare the current state of an organization with an ideal future state in order to identify gaps, then determine what actions can be taken to close them.