The Brainstorm Question process allows people to focus on finding alternative ways of thinking about large or small problems in an effort to create innovative solutions.
Brainstorm Question Process
- Set the Stage - Select a challenge that your team is facing. Depending on the size of your team, break up into smaller groups of 3-6 people. Briefly share the challenge with the team.
- Brainstorm the questions – Ask each of the smaller groups to brainstorm questions. Set a timer for 4-6 minutes and ask the group to generate as many questions as possible. The group shouldn’t answer any of the questions and they shouldn’t explain why they are asking the question. Jot down questions verbatim, so that
- Identify a quest-commit to it – focus on the questions that may be divergent or provide different ways of framing the challenge.
Quick Start Example:
- Set the Stage – How to engage remote workers? Team’s engagement levels have decreased since we first started working from home in March
- Brainstorm the questions – What did you do differently in March? What is engagement? What were the engagement levels in March? How did you measure engagement? Why do you care? What have you done to increase engagement levels? What does a remote worker look like when they are engaged (has this been communicated to the team, do they agree?).
- Identify a quest – commit to it - What does a remote worker look like when they are engaged (has this been communicated to the team, do they agree?) – Ask a small team to work on finding the answer to the questions and providing a solution in a timely fashion. Try the solution, if it doesn’t work, or if it stops working, try the process again.