[Sigia-l] "Team work" not what's cracked up to be?

[Christopher Fahey]

I'm coming late to this thread, but I wanted to defend brainstorming...

> The best practice of team work and group brainstorming have 
> often been preached here. I like apple pie, too, but there 
> seems to be, gasp, doubters.

I think it's important to note that "brainstorming" is not the same as
"teamwork" at all. They are apples and oranges.

The point of brainstorming is to foster chaos, to open the floodgates and to
collect ideas *no matter how seemingly dumb they are* (dumb ideas from smart
people, of course). It's supposed to be a game. It's true, however, that the
majority of real-world brainstorming sessions immediately lapse into
competition for the best ideas, and group-wide avoidance of seemingly bad
ideas. People are afraid to look dumb, so they don't take risks. In short,
it does indeed become "groupthink", but not because brainstorming itself is
a flawed methodology, but because it ceased to be really brainstorming at
all because the leader of the session wasn't running the game correctly. 

A good brainstorming session needs to be run by a leader whose job it is to
encourage as many ideas as possible as quickly as possible, to record them
in detail, and to silence all judgements until the session is over. Also,
the session's participants should be aware of the rules (well, the lack
thereof) and they must be very good at coming up with lots of good ideas.
Being inclusive is great, but including someone whose ideas are consistently
bad doesn't help a brainstorming session! After the brainstorming session is
over, a single person or a group can sift through the ideas and pick out the
best ones to develop further. 

-Cf


Christopher Fahey
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