Brainstorming

Brainstorming can be defined as “a group creativity technique designed to generate a large number of ideas for the solution of a problem.” During the year 1953 the brainstorming method was popularized by Alex Faickney Osborn in a book called Applied Imagination. Osborn projected that groups could double their creative output with brainstorming.

Even though brainstorming has turn out to be a popular group technique, when applied in a traditional group setting, researchers have not established confirmation of its effectiveness for enhancing either quantity or quality of the thoughts or ideas that are being generated.

For the reason that some of the problems as distraction, social loafing, evaluation apprehension, and production blocking, conventional brainstorming groups are modest and more efficient than other types of groups, and they are in fact less successful than individuals working independently. In the Encyclopedia of Creativity, Tudor Rickards, in his entry on brainstorming, summarizes its controversies and also indicates the dangers of conflating productivity in group work with quantity of ideas.

Professor Olivier Toubia of Columbia University has conducted an extensive research in the field of idea generation and has concluded that incentives are extremely valuable within the brainstorming context. Instigation on these attempts to advance brainstorming, the method
of electronic brainstorming stands out.

Mostly through anonymization and parallelization of input, electronic brainstorming enforces the ground rules of efficient brainstorming and thereby eliminates most of the harmful or inhibitive effects of group work. The positive effects of electronic brainstorming become more pronounced with group size.

At present are four fundamental rules in brainstorming.

• Focus on quantity: The best guess is that the greater the number of ideas are generated, the greater the possibility of producing a fundamental and effective solution.
• Withhold criticism: The participants should center on extending or adding to ideas, reserving criticism for an afterward 'critical stage' of the process.
• Welcome unusual ideas: To get a fine and extended list of ideas, unusual ideas are welcomed. These new-fangled ways of thinking may provide better solutions.
• Combine and improve ideas: Excellent ideas may be shared to form a solitary enhanced good idea, as suggested by the slogan "1+1=3".

Questions:

• What is mean by traditional brainstorming?
• What was the concept given by Alex Faickney Osborn?