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3 • Brainstorming - Part 3

The chairman of the Brainstorm session is the key person at the conference table. It is his responsibility to get ideas from the panel members and to see that each person has an opportunity to take part. A good chairman will carefully "pre-Brainstorm" any problem he is asked to moderate. He will look for categories of possible ideas and develop ideas of his own as well as leading questions which he can use to stimulate the panel to think "around" the problem in the course of the session. Usually, the chairman of the session will do a better job if he is not the man with the problem.

In running the Brainstorm itself, the chairman should have some kind of signal, usually a small bell, which he can use to warn anyone who forgets himself and criticizes an idea. The bell is also handy for enforcing orderly conduct of the session. Although some Brainstorm advocates feel that the conduct of sessions should be informal, others are inclined to "ring the bell" also on come­dians, "wise guys," and those who try persistently to "sell" their ideas. These leaders feel that since the purpose of a Brainstorming group is to solve a business problem, and since there is apt to be a sizable amount of company time and talent tied up in the session, the Brainstorm itself should be run as a business meeting.

The leader also has the job of keeping all the minds working together—he has to be alert to any tendency of his panel members to break up into smaller groups. And, although the four rules and the activities of the moderator should serve to keep the session disciplined, the chairman should also strive to keep the mood as relaxed as possible. He may do this with some preplanned, com­pletely "wild" ideas himself; he may accomplish it with his own relaxed method of conducting the session. And, by all means, the chairman should keep shooting for quantity of ideas.

All ideas produced during a session—mild, wild, mediocre, or magnificent—should be recorded by a secretary. She can take the ideas down reportorially, rather than verbatim, because when she later types up her list, she will have the opportunity to put back missing words and make complete sentences out of her key phrases. If you expect your session to be a fast-moving one, you can use two secretaries, having them alternate the ideas recorded.

Although there is no hard and fast rule on how long a Brain­storm session should run, it is recommended that you set your "extremes" at forty-five minutes and an hour and a half. The mini­mum of forty-five minutes (which should be announced to the panel right at the start) will ensure that after "surface," "tried and true," and "what someone else tried" ideas are out of the way, the individual panel members will not sit back and feel they are finished. It is frequently noticeable in a session that about ten to twenty minutes after it has started, there is a definite lull in the idea production. This is when the "easy" suggestions stop coming, and the panel members have to "dig in" and really start thinking. This is also a critical point for the moderator to watch for, because he will have to "move in" fast to get the session going again, or risk having it die out completely on him. The hour-and-a-half maximum time represents what is generally a "fatigue point," beyond which panelists will decrease in productivity.

Related terms include successful business and business executive.