Brainstorming & Applied Imagination

cerebrate has a long history that stretches back to almost 3000 years, although it owes its current popularity to efforts of Alex Osborn in mid-fifties through his seminal work Applied Imagination (Proctor, 1999, 114 Sutton and Hargaddon, 1996). Osborn used cerebrate with an objective to increase creativeness within organizations. In his surmises, creativity in organizations was impeded by hostile environment to new inclinations that disheartened people from coming forth with their views and opinions.Further development of brainstorm has been result of Osborns commitment to encourage employees to go down fall out freely with their ideas (Paulus and Brown, 2003, 110). Brainstorming gained rapid popularity due to its simplicity, its fun elements, its therapeutic abilities and its proven in effect(p)ness in stimulating creativity and emergence of new ideas (Davis, 1973, 90). In brainstorm participants are encouraged to come openly with their ideas of wildest sort, without being interfered, and criticized, that leads to combination and amendment of ideas (Sutton and Hargaddon, 1996).Techniques of Brainstorming Generally think techniques are divided into two main categories that are a) Unstructured b) Structured (Proctor, 1999, 114). While the unstructured brainstorming doesnt involve any conventional procedure, resulting in unproductive efforts, the structured brainstorming proceeds through some set rules that make it a very effective technique. These rules and principles, suggested by Osborn in the early 1950s are (ibid) 1. No criticism critique is not permitted during brainstorming session to patron in uninhibited flow of ideas2. Quantity is encouraged declamatory number of ideas increases likelihood of effectiveness of session 3. Unrestrained ideas Brainstorming sessions encourages participants to come out with any idea, no matter how wild it appears. This helps people in coming out of their fears and express their views openly 4. Improvement of id eas Brainstorming also encourages people to suggest in improving ideas of other people and suggest shipway by which various ideas can be combined in unison, for greater efficiency. Benefits of BrainstormingThese techniques of brainstorming have helped in ambit solutions to various kinds of problems within organizations. As reported by Proctor (1999, 116) brainstorming has proved very effective in coming out with solutions of problems that pertain to Issues of reducing clipping in production line, 1. finding ways to handle shop lifting 2. In marketing and sales segment where within a short time a large number of concepts, punch lines and creative names are requestd. However the same techniques of brainstorming do not yield desired result if problem is too technical or require special expertise that cannot be suggested by other people.Today brainstorming has become synonymous with creative cerebration and infusion of imaginative solution to problems that come in organizational se tups. The basic concept of brainstorming is to pass on a synergy of ideas that helps to break situation of deadlocks. It helps in generating ideas and then narrows down attention to their detail whereby from a number of available options the optimum course is selected. Thus it creates a sequence where participants themselves become proponents of ideas and their judge to rotter out the ineffectual concepts and retain only those that carry sufficient potential with them (Proctor, 1999).The distinct advantage of brainstorming is that it helps in bringing forth a number of ideas through creating a light and interactive atmosphere where one idea is instigator of many other ideas, and even an absurd suggestion acting as a stimulant for relevant ideas. The other advantage of brainstorming is that it is a therapeutic procedure in overstressed atmospheres where people are given opportunities to speak up, present their views, receive feedback and share their ideas with others (Davis, 1973) .There are numerous instances where brainstorming has successfully delivered the solution to problems that had flummoxed organizations. Effectiveness of Brainstorming Although the effectiveness of brainstorming is demonstrated through various experiments and psychometric test throngs, there is a controversy whether group brainstorming is more effective than solitary brainstorming (Paulus and Brown, 2003). As mentioned by Sutton and Hargaddon (1996), a majority of experiments conducted on techniques of brainstorming have come out with different annotation on the thesis of Osborn.Their findings revealed that although group brainstorming is a widely accepted system for inspiring creativity, revamping business organisation operations and bringing improvement in industrial and manufacturing processes, controlled tests have shown that compared to individuals thinking alone, the productivity output of group brainstorming is lower. Further findings by Mullen, Johnson and Salas (1991) s uggest that in some cases groups consisting of more than two peniss have shown relatively lower productivity than that of individual thought process.However, on exploring the reasons of lower productivity, its found some of them result from untoward drill of Osborns fundamental rules. The three main reasons suggested for lower productivity in group brainstorming are 1. Fear among group members in freely expressing their ideas, anticipating negative feedback by their group partners 2. Lower aim of accountability, where member tend to go reckless and literally get focused on coming out with only wild and impractical ideas 3. Sometimes over generation of ideas by some individuals block idea generation process of other individuals who loose the coherence of their thought process.Electronic Brainstorming Application of information engineering science and computer analysis methods to brainstorming has provided new tools in hands of researchers to measure the effectiveness of brainst orming and improve its outcome by balancing technological capabilities with the situational requirements. contact styles within groups, in the words of Dennis (1994) have largely resorted to electronic communion styles that offers benefits of parallelism, direct access to meeting memories and anonymity offered by pure electronic communication.Group brainstorming has seen emergence of new techniques such as Group Decision Support System, Electronic Meeting System, Groupware, and Group Support System. Some of these methods help the group members to interact with each other by help of networked computers that facilitate instant communication, messaging, sharing of ideas and joint coordination. In addition members can highlight key issues on discussion on common large electronic blackboard that is visible to every group member (Dennis, 1994).Apart from the benefits of parallelism, access to meeting memories and anonymity of individual, the electronic brainstorming session also provid es the facility of media immenseness, i. e contagious disease of complex information. Studies have shown that a combination of electronic communication and verbal communication produces better media richness than what either of them are capable of achieving alone (Dennis, 1994). Electronic brainstorming has received great boos by application of EBT or Electronic Brainstorming Tool that has been designed to assist researchers who are interested in method of electronic brainstorming (Clapper, 1995).The tool provides users with a simple interface to help in sharing and development ideas for effective communication, leading to greater media richness. Reeference Clapper DL, 1995, EBT a Tool for Electronic Brainstorming Researchers. Journal of organizational Computing. Volume 5. Issue 1, Page tote up 22 Davis, GA, 1973, Psychology of trouble Solving Theory and Practice, underlying Books, New York Dennis AR, 1994, Electronic Support for Large Groups, Journal of Organizational Comput ing, Volume 4. Issue 2, Page Number 177Hargadon A, Sutton RI, 1996, Brainstorming Groups in Context Effectiveness in a Product Design Firm, Administrative knowledge Quarterly. Volume 41. Issue 4, 685 Mullen, Brian, Craig Johnson, and Eduardo Salas, 1991, Productivity loss in brainstorming groups A meta-analytic integration, Basic and Applied Psychology, 12 2-23 Paulus PB, Brown VR, 2003, Group Creativity Innovation through Collaboration (edit),Bernard A. Nijstad, Paul B. Paulus, Oxford University Press. New York Proctor, T, 1999, Creative Problem Solving for Managers, Routledge London