You will be pleased to learn that advanced brainstorming techniques can allow you to brainstorm effectively by yourself without the need for a group. This means that you can hold a brainstorming session absolutely any time - and as many times as you want - with no money, time or difficulty spent organizing a group of people. In fact, many individuals find that they can be more creative on their own rather than as part of a traditional brainstorming group! And yet the freedom of being able to brainstorm by yourself is amazingly simple to achieve.
Times when you may want to brainstorm by yourself
You work by yourself
You work for yourself and are self-employed
There is no one available for a group session
The people around you do not like brainstorming sessions
The people around you will not follow the brainstorming rules
It is too time-consuming or expensive for you to hold a group brainstorming session
You want to take credit for the ideas all for yourself
The problem is too small to justify gathering a large group of people
You work in an uncreative or very critical organization
Advanced Brainstorming makes it not only possible to brainstorm by yourself but it also makes it easy!
How to use advanced brainstorming to brainstorm by yourself
The blue links below are all described later in the Green tour, but you can click on them now if you want to find out more - remembering to return to this page!
Use creative thinking to start off your approach from a different angle
Spark off new ideas by getting stimuli from brainstorming software or from manual techniques instead of relying on other people
Use the interactive brainstorming techniques to challenge the current ways of thinking
Be asked direct questions from the interactive techniques which will help you think of all possibilities
When you get stuck for an idea, instantly move on to the next stimulus at the press of a button
You will find that by using advanced brainstorming techniques you will be prompted into new ways of thinking without using other people. If you use a structured problem-solving approach to generate and analyze new ideas you will be at a great advantage over people who do not think that they can be creative by themselves. It is possible to be more creative by yourself using creative techniques than you might be in a group of people in a badly run brainstorming session.
Creativity and Creative Thinking
What is creativity?
Creativity is the bringing into being of something which did not exist before, either as a product, a process or a thought.
You would be demonstrating creativity if you:
Invent something which has never existed before
Invent something which exists elsewhere but you are not aware of
Invent a new process for doing something
Reapply an existing process or product into a new or different market
Develop a new way of looking at something (bringing a new idea into existence)
Change the way someone else looks at something
In fact, we are all creative every day because we are constantly changing the ideas which we hold about the world about us. Creativity does not have to be about developing something new to the world, it is more to do with developing something new to ourselves.When we change ourselves, the world changes with us, both in the way that the world is affected by our changed actions and in the changed way that we experience the world.
Creativity can be used to make products, processes and services better and it can be used to create them in the first place. It is expected that increasing your creativity will help you, your organization and your customers become happier through improvements in your quality and quantity of output.
What is creative thinking?
Creative thinking is the process which we use when we come up with a new idea. It is the merging of ideas which have not been merged before. Brainstorming is one form of creative thinking: it works by merging someone else's ideas with your own to create a new one. You are using the ideas of others as a stimulus for your own.
This creative thinking process can be accidental or deliberate. Without using special techniques creative thinking does still occur, but usually in the accidental way; like a chance happening making you think about something in a different way and you then discovering a beneficial change. Other changes happen slowly through pure use of intelligence and logical progression. Using this accidental or logical progression process, it often takes a long time for products to develop and improve. In an accelerating and competitive world this is obviously disadvantageous. Using special techniques, deliberate creative thinking can be used to develop new ideas. These techniques force the mergance of a wide range of ideas to spark off new thoughts and processes. Brainstorming is one of these special techniques, but traditionally it starts with unoriginal ideas. Developments of products occur much more rapidly using these deliberate techniques than by accident.
Many people known for being creative use these techniques, but are not aware they are doing so because they have not been formally trained in them. If you use these deliberate techniques during advanced brainstorming sessions then you too will be more creative.
With practice, ongoing creative thinking (the continuous investigation, questioning and analysis that develops through education, training and self-awareness) occurs all the time. Ongoing creativity maximizes both accidental and deliberate creative thinking. Ongoing creativity takes time and deliberate practice to become skillful at, but it's surprising how quickly it becomes an attitude, not a technique.
The first step to take is to learn the creative thinking techniques so that you can deliberately use them to come up with new ideas. You will then be at an immediate advantage over those who don't know how to use them. You should then practise the techniques to increase your skill at ongoing creative thinking. (After a while you may even find it unnecessary to use specific techniques because you may be having too many ideas anyway.)
Now let's find out how creative thinking techniques work.
Manual brainstorming tools and techniques
If you still insist on using manual techniques then this part of the training article will show you how you can do that. We believe that you will find easier and better than anything you can achieve manually. Manually, it is possible to do most of the things you can do with a computer but it just takes longer, is more frustrating and can interrupt the flow of your session.
The aim of the tools is to provide you with a stimulus to spark off ideas and discussions in your brainstorming session. By providing an original stimulus for your discussions you will get original ideas as a result.
How to manually get your stimuli using the various techniques
Random Word
Get a dictionary, magazine or novel and open it up at a random page and pick a random word from it. Try to make sure the word is actually selected randomly and, if you're using a publication other than a dictionary, that it covers a range of topics. Or, you could choose a number of a page and a number of a line before opening the book, then go to that particular page and line and pick the first word or noun as the stimulus. (Only brainstorming software can pick a random word truly randomly.)
Random Picture
Get a general interest magazine or an illustrated encyclopedia and open it up at a random page and pick a random picture from it. Try to make sure the picture is actually selected randomly and that the magazine definitely covers a range of topics.
False Rules
Get a magazine, book or rule book and open it up at a random page and pick a random phrase or sentence from it. Again, try to make sure the book covers a range of topics.
Random Website
Go to one of the search engines (eg. Yahoo!) and use their random website function.
SCAMPER
Work through all of the topics related to SCAMPER and ask yourself questions related to that topic.
Search & Reapply
Look around you and try to find an area which you can reapply the principles from. Think of related areas or similar situations and find out how other people succeed in a similar way.
Challenge Facts
Write down all of the facts and features related to your probortunity. Write a sentence stating the reverse of that fact. Now see what would happen if that were true and find out how you would respond.
Escape
Encourage people to break free from their social inhibitions and conventions and invite them to live in a world of make-believe and pretence (for some this may not be difficult!). See what ideas are produced.
Analogies
Make an analogy to another business or situation, look at their solutions, and then discover new ideas about your own situation.
Wishful Thinking
Write down your ultimate fantasies and dreams about the perfect solution. Ask yourself how great it would be if only something else did it for you. Then rationalize these solutions and see how else they could be achieved.
Thesaurus
Use a thesaurus and find the words which describe your probortunity. Write down alternative words and also their antonyms (their opposites). Exchange the words in your probortunity statement to discover new ways of seeing it and other possible solutions.
All of these manual techniques will become quicker and easier to apply if you use it for the purpose. Now that we have covered the physical tools available to you we will investigate the organizational obstacles often associated with traditional brainstorming sessions and we will suggest advanced techniques to overcome them.