IDEAS AND GOALS | personal development ||
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A MARATHON: THINK, ACT, SHARE ACHIEVEMENTS
is appointed to assist the coordinator with copying, distrib-
uting, collecting, and other administrative matters.
The team sits at a table sufficiently large to accommo-
date every member comfortably—ideally, a round table.
Each participant receives a pen and a large sheet of
paper with the problem to be resolved spelled out at the
top.
For greater clarity and mobilization of attention, large
placards can be displayed showing
• the task to be tackled,
• a list of the stages of the procedure, and
• the brainstorming rules. ience of analysis and for more coherent answers, it is sug-
gested that the team members write down their thoughts
about the task. Everybody will be busy writing, which en-
courages each one to focus on the task at hand. At this
stage the team is more productive at generating ideas as
individuals. Silence is obligatory for concentrating attention
and creating an atmosphere of search.
Before beginning the storm, the coordinator not only
acquaints all the participants with the rules of the method-
ology, but also puts them at ease and in the proper frame
of mind for the task. It’s important not only to remove their
fear of looking stupid, but also to smash all the assump-
tions that hobble their creative thinking, such as notions
that they aren’t capable of doing something, it’s not al-
lowed, or it’s impossible. 4. Giving voice to the ideas.
Tempo is important at this stage, and the coordinator’s
task is to quickly acquaint everyone with the ideas that
have been registered. They shouldn’t be evaluated and crit-
icized at this point; what’s important is to understand the
essence of the proposals. The assistant reads off the
ideas, and the coordinator ensures that the participants
simply listen without comment.
The method described below does a good job of alle-
viating the sense of the seriousness of the task and putting
them as adults into a game-playing state of mind.
Using a deck of cards with depictions of fictional char-
acters, each participant draws a card from the deck and
spends two or three minutes thinking about how the sub-
ject and heroes in the picture relate to the brainstorming
topic or to the mental state of the participant. Then each
gets a minute to give a relevant interpretation of his or her
card. After this warm-up, the necessary relaxed atmos-
phere will have been created and the team can shift to the
basic task. 5. Ranking the ideas.
While the participants take a break, the coordinator
and the assistant compile a list of all the ideas that have
been expressed and make a copy for each participant.
After the break, each team member decides independently
how to prioritize the ideas, arranging them from 1 (the best
idea) to 10 (the least interesting one).
3. Information collection.
After the allotted time, the coordinator asks the partic-
ipants to give their ideas to the assistant, who collects the
papers.
This is the order of the brainstorming process:
1. The coordinator states the task.
Incidentally, if asked for a personal opinion of the
issue, the coordinator sends the problem back, proposing
that the participants state their own understanding of the
problem. 6. Discussion of the best ideas.
The participants take another break while the coordi-
nator and the assistant count the points that the team
members awarded to the ideas. The ideas that get the
smallest number of points are considered the best ones.
The best three are chosen for critical review.
When the team members again take their seats at the
table, they are asked to give comprehensive consideration
to each of the three ideas, and find the merits and short-
comings in each one. A time limit for discussion of each
idea might be appropriate.
2. Silent generation of ideas.
This stage requires ten or fifteen minutes. For conven- Rules for brainstorming participants:
• Say what you think. Nonsense can be useful, too.
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