Are you looking for a fast, effective way to promote creative thinking and problem solving skills in your company? Brainstorming allows you to draw out and harness the best ideas from everyone to make the company better. An effective session will last anywhere from 15 to 45 minutes, with 30 minutes being ideal, and there are wonderful techniques you can use to get everyone thinking outside the box.

The aim of the brainstorming session should be to generate the most ideas possible within a specific period of time. Ready to get started? Follow these tips in this issue of Promotional Consultant Today.

1. Determine your optimal group size. The best number of participants for a brainstorming session is between four and seven people. Any less than four, and you run the risk of not having enough stimulation. Any more than seven, and you may find that there is insufficient opportunity for everyone to contribute.

2. Appoint a group leader. Each brainstorming session requires a group leader. The role of the leader is to keep the ideas as free-flowing as possible. The group leader is a stimulator of ideas, encouraging each person to speak up with anything he or she has to contribute.

3. Designate a recorder. There should also be a recorder at each session. This person will write down every idea as it is generated so that the list can be typed up and circulated at a later time.

4. Focus on the quantity of ideas. The most important rule of brainstorming is to avoid evaluating the ideas during the process. The focus is should be on the number of ideas generated. Evaluation and discussion of the ideas will take place at a separate session, away from the original brainstorming.

5. Keep it positive. The keys to creative thinking and successful brainstorming techniques are positive emotions, laughter, ridiculous ideas and absolutely no criticism of any kind. The group leader needs to ensure that no one says anything that throws water on the ideas of anyone else and encourages the group to think outside of any constraints.

6. Agree on the topic at hand. When I conduct brainstorming sessions, I find that the best way to get going is to first agree on the question or problem, and second, to go around the table one by one. Pretty soon, everyone will start to contribute and the session is off and running.

7. Assemble a different group to evaluate. When it comes to evaluating the ideas in a later session, it can be helpful to bring together an entirely different group of people. This group will consider the ideas without the ego involvement and emotional attachment of the original group. As a result, they will be able to assess the ideas far more objectively.

Source: Brian Tracy is chairman and CEO of Brian Tracy International, a company specializing in the training and development of individuals and organizations. He has studied, researched, written and spoken for 30 years in the fields of economics, history, business, philosophy and psychology. He is the top selling author of more than 70 books that have been translated into dozens of languages.