Exploring Different Brainstorming Techniques

Hello and welcome to the travelling introvert. Today, I'm gonna talk about brainstorming. This is something that we don't get taught in school to my knowledge and yet is something that is really helpful and useful in everyday life. Brainstorming might be that you need to think of an idea very quickly or a sort of brain dump a bunch of things and then have something come out of it that is actionable. And I want to talk about two very specific things. I want to talk about energy conscious brainstorming. So there's different variations of that and why that's helpful for different types of humans. So it could be a fifty minute brain dump.

This is where you just dump everything that all the thoughts are in your head on a piece of paper, on a chalkboard, whatever it might be, and you dump it out. This is really good for people who need to get their initial thoughts out quickly, people who work best with time limits, and individuals who start strong but like lose energy if they have to do it over a very long period of time. Then thinking about energy, break for processing. Breaks for processing during brainstorming is really important. These are really good for people who need mental reset time or who process in waves or individuals who benefit from stepping away doing something else and coming back. So, you might talk about an idea and then take five minutes to like walk around the block or go do it something totally different like washing the dishes and come back and think about it again. So, there is that break for processing. And reflection.

These could be for validate their thoughts or process in stages, quiet integration time, they go back, they get time that isn't necessarily a break going somewhere else, but it could be. We've done this bit of brainstorming that's been very energetic, and now we're going to pause and give people time and quiet for reflection. And that silence can be golden for some people. And then there's also sort of prioritization brainstorming. If there's too many options then this is a really good strategy for people, especially if they get overwhelmed by too many options, who people who need very clear outcomes, who appreciate focused decision making. So if you've got fifteen minutes, this is all the the stuff that we need to prioritize, let's prioritize it by figure out whichever methodology you're gonna use to prioritize, but that can be really good. And then there's progressive brainstorming. And so this could be okay.

You have individual brainstorming time, which is really good for people who need solo solo ideation time, who think of their gen or generate their ideas better alone and they need quiet focus. Then we go into small group sharing for two or three people. This can work well for people who get overwhelmed in large groups, people who need sort of gentle social warming up and individuals who prefer intimate discussions. So, this is the next iteration of this brainstorming. You also get feedback from other humans and maybe go away and and iterate again. Then we go for full group synthesis. So, this part is really good for extroverts who gain energy from group work and those who build on other people's ideas and they benefit from collective wisdom. And then maybe there's some time that there's individual reflection after all that brainstorming and ideas that have been had.

So this will be really good for having that group and then getting to go and process that input alone or realign with their own thoughts, people who need some quiet over after some social interaction, especially that energy exchange that might happen in a bigger fuller group sort of a thing. And then and this part almost never happens is the written documentation a written summary of what was brainstormed and what the next steps actually are. This is really good for people who need to document who process better in writing and individuals who need really clear takeaways of okay so like what now happens next? Like what are we doing? What do we agree to do? Just hoping that someone else will remember and they may remember incorrectly doesn't help. And so that is progressive brainstorming. How you start off like you can put the ideas out there and then people get to work on it in a group, but that ends up being a can be a longer process, but suits a lot of different varieties of styles of humans all at once. And so, brainstorming is a skill and facilitating brainstorming is a skill and so something to think about when you have to do that within your daily lives. Thank you for listening. This is Janice at the Career Introvert helping you build your brand and get hired.

Have a great rest of your week.