Chapter 7

Brainstorming

In This Chapter:

Brainstorming is a group facilitation technique that is used often in elicitation sessions to generate ideas, approaches, and issues. Brainstorming is a creative process that allows participants to look for solutions that may not have been previously considered. Brainstorming harnesses the power of the group and is used for both idea generation and problem solving. The process brings together a group of subject matter experts who possess the requisite domain knowledge to solve complex problems and focus on innovative solutions. This process is invaluable to the business analyst, since business problems are increasingly complex and interrelated, thus requiring the contribution of multiple experts with diverse skills and perspectives to understand.

Brainstorming is also used as a consensus-building technique. Using brainstorming for consensus building is effective when the decision is such that all groups need to support the decision after leaving the session. Brainstorming advantages and disadvantages—from the business analyst perspective—are shown in Table 7-1.

Table 7-1—Brainstorming Advantages and Disadvantages

Types of Brainstorming

Types of brainstorming include:

Individual. A project team member creates a list of ideas concerning a project issue or risk.

Open. Meeting participants call out ideas that are captured by the meeting facilitator or scribe. This is an efficient process when team dynamics are good and individual skill sets are strong.

Structured. Meeting participants silently write down their ideas and the facilitator then requests that each person in turn share just one idea. The meeting continues with all the participants taking their turn until new ideas are exhausted. This is an effective process when a strong personality or a person with higher position or expert power is in the group. All participants can contribute equally, as this method allows introverts time to silently think through their position before being distracted by other meeting participants.

Rules for Brainstorming

Key rules for brainstorming meetings are:

Make a decision on the type of brainstorming, open or structured. This decision is usually made by the facilitator, typically the business analyst.

Clearly state the objective of the meeting. For example, state (and write on a flip chart or white board) that the meeting objective is to “Create options for increasing Asia/Pacific user involvement in our elicitation and analysis activities.”

Create an environment in which participants feel encouraged to participate and believe that their time is used effectively.

Establish ground rules at the beginning of the session:

Do not discuss ideas during the brainstorming session.

Do not dismiss an idea.

Do not discount a person or an idea.

The only discussion allowed is questions to clarify the idea.

Do build on others’ suggestions and ideas.

Do have fun.

Do give rewards for the craziest idea.

Establish roles:

A timekeeper

A scribe who captures the ideas

A facilitator who runs the meeting. If the project size is large and the requirements risk is high, the business analyst might decide to enlist the help of a professional facilitator to conduct the meeting.

Determine the process to be used for combining like ideas and categorizing and summarizing the brainstorm results, e.g., multivoting.

Publish an agenda.

Create multiple meetings if the issue is complex and requires a break to reduce meeting fatigue.

Schedule follow-up meetings.

Use internal resources (such as senior business analysts and senior business process improvement experts) to help sort the categories on large projects.

Use prioritization techniques to sort ideas. Votes can be given to team members to indicate their choice for the top ideas to consider taking forward for more analysis.

Tailoring Brainstorm Sessions

The business analyst considers the environmental factors, such as organizational culture and project criticality, when deciding how many sessions are needed or to ensure all good ideas have been identified. The business analyst scales brainstorming activities to the project environment. Table 7-2 shows the brainstorming variances scaled to the project profile.

Table 7-2—Brainstorming Scaled to Project Size, Risk, Complexity