The fountain of our creative talent is the subconscious mind.  It uses every scrap of information that comes its way.  It seemingly randomly calls forth statistics, principles learned in the classroom, newspaper articles, advertisements, comments heard on your street, and long years of personal experience.  These ingredients of your past and present life are thrown out to the conscious mind where they are related into new ideas -- if our judgment allows it.

Dale Smith, an industrial engineer with P&G, makes an analogy between the mind and a vast filing system.  He views the conscious mind as the constant, on-going judge and mirror of our intelligence, with the subconscious serving as a sort of file clerk constantly searching that vast data bank of all of our thoughts and experiences--the unconscious mind.  When this subconscious file clerk finds something of potential value to a problem either currently or recently under consideration, it routes this information to the conscious find for analysis.  The only problem is that this routine of old perceptions and experiences must pass through a filter -- the judgment.  It is here that much of the creative potential of the subconscious mind is lost.

The brainstorming technique attempts to bypass this judgment filter and tap the tremendous source of creative power embodied in the subconscious mind.

WHAT IS BRAINSTORMING?

Remember the caption that says: "Behold the turtle.  He makes progress only when his neck is out".   That is the fundamental tenet of brainstorming.  People are more creative when they stick their necks out and let radically new, or seemingly impossible, ideas roll out.

Contrast this with the typical conference or meeting.  Generally, the individual running the show is the boss.  The individual knows who the boss is, and so do you, i.e., you visualize yourself being judged by the leader with serious consequences for a poor assessment -- your promotion, your pay raise, or even your security.  In this case, it is hard to do something daring, unless it is really well calculated.  Spon-taneity is not natural in such a setting.  Yet spontaneous ideas are usually the ones that turn the creative tide.

Brainstorming is a strategy with which a problem can be attacked -- in fact, literally stormed-- by dozens of ideas.  The attack may be carried on by any size group.  The important thing is that the most creative portion of the brain, the subconscious, has its full fire directed right at the problem under attack without the judgment filter immediately applied.  Ideas -- new, different, crazy ideas -- are allowed to get out of the subconscious and into the conscious mind where they can set off a chain reaction of free association.
 

WHY BRAINSTORM?

The advantages of brainstorming are many, and many new ones emerge as one practices the method.  As an individual, it gives you a long list of creative ways, new and vigorous, to solve your old problems.  In addition, as you brainstorm more and more, you will find your creative skill begin to snowball.  As you learn how to suspend judgment and storm old roadblocks with new vigor, you will do it much more effectively.  You will also find that you get much more mileage out of your ideas than you ever expect.  Say, for example, that you have responsibility for a disposal problem.  You may brainstorm "How to Dispose of Waste X," and come up with 172 ideas.  You may use only four or five of these ideas, but now you have an inventory of over one hundred fifty ideas from which you can easily choose how to dispose of Waste Y and Waste Z.

From the corporate standpoint, brainstorming enables the company to implicitly cut through the forest of organization to find new talent and encourage it.  It is only by a constant process of examination and re-examination, creation and re-creation that a large corporation can stay competitive.  Furthermore, brainstorming promotes communication as it cuts across department and section lines.  One half-hour session can do much more to promote communication and kill monotony than wastebasket-bound memos and unread biweekly reports.  Another often hidden advantage comes when, for example, from that list of 172 disposal ideas comes an idea used to spark a safety campaign, package a new product, or solve a pollution problem.  The possibilities are endless.
 

HOW TO BRAINSTORM

Brainstorming is not a cult or a ritual.  It is simply a method of creative thinking. Classically, the brainstorm session has a panel of about a dozen members, although this is not a necessity.  There is a recorder present who takes down every idea.  The session follows these four rules:

1. CRITICISM IS RULED OUT.
 Adverse judgment of ideas must be withheld until later.

2. "FREE-WHEELING" IS WELCOMED
The wilder the idea, the better; it is easier to tame down than to think up.

3. QUANTITY IS WANTED
The greater the number of ideas, the more the likelihood of winners.

4. COMBINATION AND IMPROVEMENT ARE SOUGHT
In addition to contributing ideas of their own, par-ticipants should suggest how ideas of others can be turned into better ideas; or how two or more ideas can be joined into still another idea.
 

The most important thing to remember is -- brainstorming effectiveness depends heavily on the principle of deferred judgment.  Judgment about ideas is not permitted in the course of the brainstorm and such "killer phrases" as the following should be scrupulously avoided.
 

KILLER PHRASES

The brainstorm session is not the time for apologies or modesty, nor is it the time for negative statements, nor is it the time to be polite.  Free-wheeling, ongoing, crackling exchanges of ideas -- one on top of the other -- are the names of the game.

The  following phrases or types of phrases must be avoided:

 "This sounds way out, but...."

 "This is not exactly on the subject, but...."

 "If I'm out of line, correct me but...."

 "Joe doesn't agree with me, but...."

 "You'll probably laugh, but...."
 

and also,

 "Don't be ridiculous."

 "We tried that before."

 "It costs too much."

 "That's beyond our responsibility."

 "It's too radical a change."

 "We don't have the time."

 "That will make other equipment obsolete."

 "Not practical for operating people."

 "We've never done it before."

 "Let's get back to reality."

 "That's not our problem."
 "Why change it, it's still working o.k."

 "We're not ready for that."

 "It isn't in the budget."
 

 SUMMARY

Brainstorming relies on the principle of association of ideas.  It uses the rapid flow of ideas as a stimulus to the further creation of ideas.

The use of brainstorming by a work team often tends to develop more positive work habits in subsequent group sessions even when brainstorming is not being formally used. It helps in-dividuals to feel more free and to share their ideas with less concern for possible criticism.

Remember the four rules of brainstorming:

1.  Judgment is ruled out.

2.  Free-wheeling is welcome.

3.  Quantity is desired.

4.  Combinations are sought.
 

Avoid killer phrases, and ......

BRAINSTORM, BRAINSTORM, BRAINSTORM
 

 THE DELPHI TECHNIQUE
 

The Delphi technique is a method of eliciting and refining group judgments.   In practice, the procedures would be used with a group of experts or especially knowledgeable individuals.  The rationale for  the procedures is primarily the age-old adage "Two heads are better than one," when the issue is one where exact knowledge is not available.

In general, the Delphi procedures have three features: (1) anonymity, (2) controlled feedback, and (3) statistical group response.

Anonymity - During a Delphi sequence, the group members are not  made known to each other.  In addition, the interaction of the group members is handled in a completely anonymous fashion, such as through the use of questionnaires.  This avoids the possibility of associating a specific opinion with a particular person.  As a result, the originator of an opinion can change an opinion without publicly admitting that he/she has done so, and thereby possibly losing face.  It also means that an idea can be considered on it merits, without regard to whether the originator is held in high or low esteem by individual members of the group.

Controlled Feedback - The Delphi technique is carried out by successive submission of a questionnaire, referred to as rounds.  After each round, a summary of the results of the previous round are communicated to the participants.  It permits the group to concentrate on its original objectives, without being distracted by self chosen goals such as winning an argument or reaching an agreement for the sake of agreement.

Use of a statistical definition of the group response is a way  of reducing group pressure for conformity.  At the end of the exercise, there may still be a significant spread in individual opinions.  Probably  more important, the statistical group response is a device to assure that the opinion of every member of the group is represented in the  final response.

The Delphi approach is cumulative.  The first round is largely exploratory.  As the second and third rounds progress the areas of disagreement begin to emerge and group views on certain topics begin to come into focus.  On each round the reasoning of participants is fed back to all respondents for their appraisal.  By the fourth or fifth round there is a clear indication of the group's opinions on the subject of the study and some decisions may be made, based upon the group's consensus or polarization.

Within this framework, it is of course possible to have many variations.  For example, a possible four round sequence could be as follows:

First round - The participants are presented with a structured  questionnaire.

Second round - The participants are fed-back with some statistical description of the panel opinion to the questionnaire.  In response, they are requested to consider their previous answers and to explain their reasoning for those answers which still vary significantly from the majority.

Third round - The feedback includes, in addition to the statistical description, summaries of the pro and con arguments.  The participants are then asked, in light of this information, to reassess their new answers and to criticize unacceptable arguments.

In the fourth and final round the feedback includes the summary of all counter-arguments.  Participants are requested to give final answers.

Throughout the sequence the participants are encouraged to suggest  questions they would wish to see in the next questionnaire which they feel would clarify an issue or raise a new alternative that the group should consider.  They may also choose to rewrite, as a comment, any particular question and answer their version if they feel the original is misleading.  Questions which solicit the same answer on consecutive rounds will be omitted.

There are several more properties of the Delphi technique that renders it so desirable. The procedure is, above all, a rapid and relatively efficient way to "cream the tops of the heads" of a group of knowledgeable people.  In general it involves much less effort for a participant to respond to a well designed questionnaire than, for example, to participate in a conference or to write a paper.  A Delphi exercise, properly managed, can be a highly motivating environment for respondents.  The feed-back, if the group of experts involved is mutually self-respecting, can be novel and interesting to all.  The use of systematic procedures lends an air of objectivity to the outcomes that may or may not be spurious, but which is at least reassuring.  And  finally, anonymity and group response allow a sharing of responsibility that is refreshing and that releases some of the respondents' inhibitions.