Anatomy of a Brainstorming Session

Behind every successful project there is a successful brainstorming session .

Observing people’s behaviors, analyzing them, finding commonalities and bucketing them neatly in boxes and lists comes naturally, as a UX professional. You can term this as an occupational hazard. But nevertheless, having to conduct the brainstorming session on a daily basis over years, I couldn’t help but notice the people dynamics in every session and have come to some base observations and conclusions about their behaviors in these sessions.

Based on the above, on a broad level, we can categorize people in the room into 4 type…

The PROACTIVE

The REACTIVE

The FACT MINDER

The SILENT OBSERVER

The Pro-active

These kinds actually walk in and ‘own’ the room. There are 2 types within this category.

1. The idea Ninja — these people are fearless, constantly on the feet thinking and coming up with fresh and new ideas. They are not afraid of people shooting down their ideas.
2. The logical organizer- these kinds will make sure that the discussion is focused and goal oriented. They set the stage, drive people and sum up everything for everyone’s benefit so there is no grey area after the meeting.

They will take the initiative to manage the session. Their key responsibilities are

• Setting the framework
• Throwing of ideas on the table
• Controlling the deviations
• Help group focus on the final expected output
• Steer the conversation in clear direction
• Weigh out all options in a logical way to avoid altercations within the group
• Have enough domain and industry knowledge to talk with authority
• They manage the reactive kinds and use the fact-minders to bring logic to the table

The Reactive

These people are good reactors to ideas thrown on the table and very very important part of the session.

They can be again sub-classified in 3 types

1. The Critical types — they hardly like anything, energies concentrated in shooting down ideas as soon as they are put on the table. Most of the times for them no idea is good unless its theirs and fail to explain why. These are detrimental to the brainstorming sessions.
2. The logical kinds — they love some, they hate some…but they can explain clearly why. They help in getting vote count and sentiment about the particular idea
3. The idea builder kinds — very important kinds. The more in the room the better. These people have the ability to take a germ of an idea and put flesh and blood into it and build it to the next level.

Their key responsibilities are :

• Bringing their experience to the table and discuss the point thrown in the room
• The important and productive members of this group know exactly when to drop an argument and when to pursue it. They have an ability to sense the pulse of the full room and weigh out their opinions against others and steer to a logical conclusion
• The clear and crisp contributors are valuable reactors as they not only build upon the base ideas but also validate those ideas.
• The best results of a brainstorming come out when we have more of the open minded, ready to accept a good idea and elaborate it, kind of guys in the room. People who are not afraid of being wrong and accept it. People who can appreciate other good ideas on the table.

The Fact Minder

They are an integral part of any brainstorming session as well. Their responsibility is to..

• Set the non-comprisable baseline for the project
• When the ideas go beyond reality these people state the facts and bring the group to focus on the possibility and non possibility of the idea. Whether it is the non availability of data for the idea or technical infeasibility.
• These are the go-to people for existing analytics and research done in the field
• The Pro-active guys need them to weigh out opinions of Reactors and bring logic to why opinion A vs B

The Silent Observers

They are head counts in the room. Most of the times they sit in the room just because they have been asked to. They are happy to be unnoticed and not asked their opinion about.

Traits of a good silent observer..

From the digital team — will quickly learn from the process and absorb the discussion well. He/she will be able to translate the discussion in meaningful outputs back in office. They are attentive and willing to contribute when asked.

From the Client team — this person will absorb the process quickly and has the potential to log things chronologically. More often than not, these people do their homework for the next session and have the potential to move quickly to the ‘Reactor’ category.

Leaving you with a question…..Which type are you?

Signing off

Priyanka Agrawal | UX Evangelist