Silent brainstorm

Prep time:

30 mins to 4 hours (depending on previous work)

Run time:

1hr

People:

3-20 (incl. 1 facilitator)

Contributed by:

Digital Service Design Office, Queensland Department of Transport and Main Roads

Stages:

AlphaBetaLive

Brainstorming is one of many ideation methods and will help a group generate many ideas in a short timeframe. While brainstorming, you’re in divergent thinking mode, which will help you create new and innovative solutions. For this play, you can start with a problem statement, point of view or a how might we question.

In silent brainstorming, participants ideate individually before sharing and discussing their ideas. Silent brainstorming is a common way to run a brainstorm as it has many benefits:

• It provides multiple perspectives around a given problem
• Ensures you gather a lot of ideas before pursuing any specific ideas
• Participants' expertise and ideas are equally considered
• It produces significantly more ideas than brainstorming out loud, and the ideas tend to be more creative and of higher quality.
• It is helpful for introverts or people who are uncomfortable speaking up in a workshop.
• Because the ideas are written down (or drawn, if preferred) by the participants themselves during the silent brainstorm, we are certain that every idea will be documented along the way.
• There is flexibility around the output of the silent brainstorm – you can ask participants to either write or draw or give the option to do either. This will make the play useful for many different things, from a service to specific product feature.

View larger image