SECTION II: HOW TO

COLLABORATE in BRAINSTORMING

Q. What is Brainstorming? 

A.  Succinctly... 

 Also be sure to browse:

The FICTION BRAINSTORMING Toolkit

Alex F. Osborn the Non Justificationist   

Does anyone know if Alex F. Osborn the Advertising Executive who developed the procedures of Brainstorming, was aware of the work of Sir Karl Popper? Because Brainstorming translates easily into Popperian terms. 

After all, Popper not only embraces Sturgeon's Law (descriptively stating that 95% of everything [and not just Pulp Science Fiction] is shit), but goes further, prescriptively contending that the diamonds will never be there to be found, save amid the freely effluent dung pile. 

And Alex F. Osborn's Brainstorming Methodology of a'posteriori deferred judgment/evaluation, putting into practice Popper's defense of free expression of unfounded conjecture, likewise stressing quantity in order to achieve quality, is now experimentally vindicated. Or is it?

Creativity in any application, in measured steps or "intuitive" leaps, unpredictably dazzlingly brilliant, even peak experience or "merely" clever, is that common and natural cognitive function which, by the Heuristics of Cybernetics particularly, is recognized to be, in part, an investigation, largely a function of flexibility, meaning the ability and willingness to reflect upon and modify ones own gestalt/frameworks and criteria (for example, as in TRIZ, to cross disciplines, inventively), by which known elements are rearranged into new forms, recognizing similarities and differences, making connections and questioning convention; even though, paradoxically, genius often depends upon not only the greater range afforded, but no less crucially, the further constraint of extensive background knowledge, whereas madness, fanaticism, dogmatism and stupidity, by contrast, are comparatively lacking in the restrictions even of reality checking.

Brainstorming actually only follows the the pattern or stages of creativity as mapped out by Poincare, and summarized concisely in

With the addition of Reality Testing of at the end, of ideas now regarded more specifically as conjectures, hypotheses, and what results is the Popperian Hypothetico Deductive process, which is Dialectic. And then there is problem solving, synthesizing both applications. And all of this is what Alex F. Osborn seeks to actually put into practice in "thinking up" or Brainstorming.

 

 

 

 

 

 

0. Optional preliminaries: 

Minimal ground rules are covered under conduct and moderation.

Optionally, warm up with an easy, perhaps fun question for a short, practice brainstorming session. It can be anything and doesn't have to be related to whatever matter at hand. 

Brainstorming may also be more productive preceded by an analysis of some sort, discussion allowing exchange of interpretations and definition of problems, root causes, the barriers to change, the specifics of the present situation, a vision of the ideal situation, the different aspects or segments whatever problem, and even an inventory of the resources available to help solve such a problem.

Indeed, Brainstorming may often benefit from preliminary and even ongoing research.

Radicalism, the attempt to start from a clean slate, is a distortion which will undermine the creativity of Brainstorming. Rather, Alex F. Osborn, much like Sir Karl Popper, follows the Dialectic of Socrates in challenging assumptions as they arise. 

Indeed, far from avoiding all assumptions, on the contrary, it may even be crucial to begin with such discourse as to make certain that the participants each understand and are satisfied with the central question before opening the floor to ideas.  

• To prevent or reduce the Six Surefire Ways to Kill a Brainstorm.

 

"... only he is an emancipated thinker who is not afraid to write foolish things." 

- Anton Chekhov 

The Non Justificationist Methodology of Brainstorming begins with the simple maxim of deferred criticism during the initial creative process of idea generation and collection. Because, as Popper points out, Critical Preference and Reality Testing come a'posteriori. 

In practice, behaviorally, this means, be curious first, critical next. To explore possibilities before filtering.

However, this has been outrageously distorted by some into sheer Anti-Critical Bias, the standpoint that criticism is bad, intrinsically hurtful and dangerous. 

But Popper explicitly holds argument/debate/polemic and controversy to be most important and productive. And Alex F. Osborn, no fool, likewise brings Critical Preference and Reality Testing into play, all in due course. 

Indeed, the one paradigm in which criticism truly has proven most inhibitive to creativity is known as Verificationsm, the doctrine that Science is the accumulation of verified knowledge. And history is replete with similar cultural doctrines as applied to the arts, as well. Thus creative speculation is actively discouraged, flittered a'priori, before hand and from the very start. 

But Non Justificationism, by contrast, holds that Science begins from unfounded conjecture which is to be encouraged, then subjected to critical preference and reality testing. In that order! In other words, that brainstorming is the first stage of the Hypothetico Deductive Method which is Dialectic, in which criticism and objectivity at all come a'posteriori, afterwards, frank, honest but sans recrimination. After all, we learn by making mistakes, creatively, and then detecting them. And that is the way we grow from practice of the arts, as well. Including creative writing, where, likewise, editing afterwards, as one goes, is crucial, but censoring oneself in advance is deadly.

But where as Critical Preference consists of such criteria as logical internal consistency (that a likely hypothesis ought not to contradict itself) and elegance (meaning that the simpler explanation that accounts for all the observations is likeliest to be true defined as correspondent to objective reality), successful Brainstorming employs it's own particular preference, the interesting over the uninteresting, dull or boring, where 'interesting' is defined as offering, at the time, more creative points of departure, and 'uninteresting' pertains to ideas that just don't seem to go anywhere, failing to spark creative points of departure, so that folks loose interest in them, and move on. (But not because of squeamish self censorship or covert peer pressure.)

1a: Any source for points of departure

After sufficient experience in imitation, individual preference emerges to begin shaping distinct style, creatively. Explore whatever spontaneous inspirations, one's own prior work or other existing sources entirely, and especially the creative reapplication and improvisation of one known elegant solution towards an entirely different problem. 

Discuss the question or issue for the brainstorming session before hand. 

Then, feel free either to jump right in, or else to take time as desired to think about and "sleep on it" in order to stimulate the process of "incubation". 

Discuss any relevant information concerning the theme or central question, which will provide additional fuel for the  imagination. 

• Open Space

And always remember that honesty is the best policy!

2: Visioning- Sharpen the focus

"Think like a man of action, but act like a man of thought"

Visioning is ongoing and concurrent with Exploration looking for Ideas. Because, to begin with, Exploration is shaped by Visioning no less than definitive Visioning must be Exploratory of whatever boundaries, and beyond. Even problem solving, in and of itself, may limit the Socratic discourse of the questions rather than the answers and undermine the quest for personal meaning and new horizons. For, in the words of George Bernanos, "there is no worse lie than a problem poorly stated."

Although, if so be, then an answer in search of a question or a solution seeking a problem, must come as close second. Seek, therefore, the Best Problem Definition.

Consider these questions using these checklists.

What do we want?
What do we have?
How may we best utilize what we have to achieve what we want?
And what outcomes will occur as a result?

No matter the unforeseen, makes irresponsible excuse for the well foreseeable.

• Community Vision Creation

• There are three crucial categories of questions.

Clearly define the problem and/or opportunity and put forth the motivating goal or ideal outcome, as applicable, not limited by perception of possibility or feasibility and compile lists of statements thereof into Affinity Diagrams according to the Kawakita Jiro method. List All Possible Alternatives and All Factors Involved.

Consider: What is the problem and/or opportunity? Why is it indeed a problem and/or opportunity? For whom is it a problem and/or opportunity? When did it first become a problem and/or opportunity? What are the roots of the problem and/or opportunity?

It is particularly important to clearly identify and put forth motivating goals in order to distinguish problems from solutions and assumptions to begin with.

For example, how to get a message to appear on screen, might not be a well defined problem, but only one solution in the first place. A better stated problem might be, how to be informed when something happens. A blinking light would be another possibility, and a phone call, perhaps automated, might be better still.

But there is worse:

Instead of defining problems outward for some external desirable result or putting forth any motivating goal, for example, in the quality of writing output for the reader i.e., highest drama, or whatever other product or service for whatever consumer or recipient, enhancement of profit margin or even whatever social good, institutional thinking may become Psychotically introverted away from empathy for real people inhabiting the real world, instead focusing upon some possibly arbitrary and obscure internal personal or collective/corporate aim, such as integrating two different legacy filing systems or reviewing guidelines for matriculation or canonization. -Not brainstorming at all, but sheer bureaucracy.

Neither seek self-definition nor count proverbial angels dancing upon the head of a pin. Beware Malagenda!

Instead, cultivate healthy and inventive extroverted self expression of thought and emotion from the sublime to the ridiculous, not constraining and Conservative obsessional self definition, individual or communal such as reconciling 'Star Trek' with 'Star Wars' nor striking any happy medium between "the woman in red" and "the girl next door" (typical bad advice from cornball Country Music).

Instead, the comparative efficacy of the two fictional technologies might, for example, follow the dramatic needs of a good story about culture clash over uses of computing, and reconcile with real science, if anything. Otherwise, it's just fanboy nitpicking.

And speaking of culture clash, lifestyle for personal happiness is seldom really ever a question of pseudo-morally compromising between superficially contrived archetypes. Indeed, just such myopic affirmation of identity can be no less suffocating to creativity than the worst bureaucracy.

A far more creative and entertaining brainstorming Exploration might be over how and why it might or could be that blonds have more fun, or, for that matter, just how to determine, indeed, what sort of love life to lead, would indeed be most pleasing or displeasing to God.

But the responsible Visioning of a better defined problem or opportunity might be in identifying all one's desires and any hazards just as one would in order to maximize any other gains while also minimizing needless risks, losses or expenses, both for oneself and others, in matters of the heart, danger to the soul, or any other context at all.

As, for example, the maximization of freedom and opportunity while minimizing vulnerability to judgmental persecution and dysfunctionality in general. In open eyed identification of whatever real problems and dynamics, grasping principles analytically instead of, for example, simply accepting for granted and pursuing any fruitless cultural Fairy Tales of accommodation with whatever misguided rationalizing values of moralistic victim blaming.

The problem of social acceptance may indeed be in part be defined as seeming neither too prim not too vulgar, as, after all, either extreme routinely faces persecution. But such may be revealed as too simplistic and superficial a problem statement. In truth, not so unlike Cinderella after all, the unpopular girl branded a slut may even turn out to be a virgin, while the popular and influential somehow enjoy far greater latitude in number of sexual partners. Perhaps the real issue is neither of style nor morality, but cliquish power relations. But then, what is the true nature of power in society?

Thus becomes manifest how the core of deepest Visioning is Practical Philosophy, abstract principles actually formulating and guiding concrete planning and action. The staunchest rigor of Visioning is treated next, then to be followed by the particular systematic process. 

Pursuant to rigorous Situation Analysis including Sensitivity Analysis:

2a:Cultivate the eustress of creative tension

by criticism, by the Valuable Intellectual Traits and in all 35 Dimensions of Critical Thought, by the uncompromisingly honest and realistic assessment of the gap between situation analysis of things as they are and the Visioning of whatever Ideal Result.

 

A Crucial Component of Creativity

 

Two common and deadly paralytic and heteronymous de-motivators are vagueness in the face of the unknown. And the obvious remedies are the clarification of whatever goals put forth and then simply learning from the successful instead of always metaphorically reinventing the proverbial wheel. But often vagueness is such that it will not even be immediately clear how to sharpen the focus, nor is whatever learning curve in surmounting the unknown always readily apparent either. In such common event, autonomy requires actually to make the vague and unknown your friend!

 

For indeed it is eustress, challenge and thereby tolerance of the awareness of disparity between reality and desire, that may characterize creativity in the individual or the social environment. -Rather than either simply giving up or else continuing, but only in whatever no less ineffectual and fruitlessly paralytic state of self-satisfied denial and anxiety.

 

The so called ideal condition, in Triz creative tension, is more properly the optimum. Hence the benevolently cunning Russian slight of hand, to replace the unendurable tension between the fallible human condition and ideal perfection (by any other name), instead with the challenging and stimulating eustress between engineering trade-offs. -thus replacing the striving with unrealistic perfection in utopist ideology, instead with problem solving to achieve any intrinsically feasable optimum, and replacing blind faith staying the course instead with feasibility study, as impossible and crushing endless open ended godlike responsibility to any goal putting forth of ultimate perfection is redefined, instead, as whatever optimistically motivating but concrete best case scenario. And because trial and error are implicit, and because discrete tasks must be undertaken before grand master plans, even rational democratic progress may yet creep into the realm of acceptance.

 

At whatever level of accomplishment, from the neophyte to the master, the eustress of Emotional decision making remains crucial because it must always be a measure of dissatisfaction that motivates and guides ongoing further progress. And this amounts to a tolerance in order to actually harness insecurity constructively as a real life motivation to creativity.

 

Because knowing and gauging the difference between any desired motivating goal put forth, and the current reality, engenders dissatisfaction, an apatite, healthy tension seeking productive resolution, no less than one would in TRIZ, seeking innovation to overcome engineering or other trade-offs, if at all possible.

 

For such is the positive power of negative thinking! 

"People who are convinced that a vision or result is important, who can see clearly that they must change their life in order to reach that result, and who commit themselves to that result nonetheless, do indeed feel compelled. They have assimilated the vision not just consciously, but unconsciously, at a level where it changes more of their behavior. They have a sense of deliberate patience--with themselves and the world--and more attentiveness to what is going on around them. All of this produces a sustained sense of energy and enthusiasm, which (often after a delay) produces some tangible results, which can then make the energy and enthusiasm stronger."

 

Peter Senge, The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook

 

 

Many people often tend to interact superficially for the comfort of denial, to avoid deeper and more troubling issues, focusing upon the trivial they neglect the meaningful, a veritable living death of running ever harder just to keep up with standing still.

But is conflict really avoided this way? By dwelling upon petty issues, rather than drama, only petty bickering  arises instead of true controversy, because the crucial impetus to growth and progress has effectively been hobbled. Thus, in fiction no less than in reality, we may do best to welcome conflict so long as it may be important or meaningful. A good process aims to resolve the decisive (and divisive) issues and clear them out of the way. Sometimes putting forth and pressing important concrete motivating goals provides the impetus to move along past conflict. But this tends to reduce drama, an effect while generally soothing in reality and the sooner the better, by the same token harmful to fiction and to be put off as long as possible, because drama is plotted and structured so as to intensify the tension of conflict until reaching climax and resolution, dramatic tension, which, indeed, by either happenstance or cultivation in reality, may sometimes be known as creative tension.

 

Such prefer everything settled, everything neat, everything as it should be. They don't like any questions, uncertainty or ambiguity. All is at peace. All is quiet. All are obviously bored or else obsessive.

 

And this throws us face first into the struggle for open honest disagreement against anti-critical bias, timidity and underhanded consensus manipulation, which even the projected CASA social technology might never sidestep. 

 

The Dialectic of Socrates

 THE SIX TYPES OF SOCRATIC QUESTIONS

 

 

2b: Focused Listing

 

Click for pros and cons of Focused Listing.

 

The focused listening method is a word association challenge that may prove somewhat experimental, in that some repetition and modification for the sake trial and error may be required, so that, in the end, the topic will be neither too broad nor too narrow to be workable or illuminating.

 

Where as, in consensus manipulation chicanery including schooling or indoctrination, especially under however relative conditions of captivity, a leader, teacher, Political Commissar or "Facilitator" sets leading question, for true Dialectics, genuine Brainstorming and more honest Visioning, by all means let the floor should be open to prompts from all participants.

 

Then Focused listing can be utilized in Visioning to help define problems and/or opportunities, beginning with data collection, the compiling of verbal description from participants into Affinity Diagrams according to the Kawakita Jiro method.

 

Standard example: List words or short phrases that describe or define what a motivated student is or does.

 

Indeed, further refinement may be derived by Directed Paraphrasing, where in a point or definition must be restated for some specific audience, context or application. Such as any Law of Thermodynamics for children, or what assessment is or should be for stockholders, consumers or regulatory agencies, respectively.

Responses can be grouped into four sets:
Confused, minimal, adequate, and excellent.

Then examine responses within and across the four evaluative categories for accuracy, suitability for the intended audience, and effectiveness in fulfilling the assigned purpose.

 

Highlight the clearest and muddiest points offered. Identify the most unclear points and help clear up the muddy points of others.

 

Click for pros and cons of Muddiest Point procedure.

Then the responses can also be grouped to discover emerging patterns of clarity and confusion.

Then data analysis follows, wherein the lists compiled can be compared and discussed freely.
 

2c: Focus upon interests rather than positions.

Shared interests may also be found among the motivations behind the conflict of opposing positions in real life drama. Here are points crucial both to real world problem solving with real people in brainstorming and visioning and, no less, in fiction writing with imaginary characters as the events in sequence of plot logic bring the story to resolution:

_{Identify interests and POV:}

_{Ask "why?" (does anyone take whichever position that they do)}

_{Ask "why not?" (haven't they taken any opposing position particularly such of which one might hope to persuade them)}

Force Field Analysis - Understanding The Pressures For and Against Change (origin)

_{Explore multiple interests, as everyone typically has multiple interests and acknowledge competing interests as part of the problem to solve, in interactively reframing the problem to achieve any sort of synergistic win-win scenario, extrication from any zero-sum deadlock.}

_{Be concrete but flexible}

_{Subject all the above to Sensitivity Analysis, Focused Listing and Muddiest Point procedures}

_{Be hard on the problem, easy on the person (unless it's a fictional character!)}

2d: Ladder of Abstraction

• Select a candidate Problem Statement. 

• A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices. -- William James
• Forced Lateral Thinking, "assumption smashing", challenge and even violate specific assumptions of a problem or situation. WHY and why else does that action need to be accomplished?  Compile a list of responses with the statement itself.

• Repeat with more problem statements.

• Revise the responses into updated or better defined problem statements.

• Then list the actual, hypothetical or dramatic obstacles, as applicable, of whatever sort. What and what else prevents or forestalls progress?  Revise and redefine problem statements yet again.

For the above point defines growth character development from adversity for oneself or anyone else in reality no less than for imaginary characters in fiction.

Alas, a common anti-critically biased mediocre minded failure of collective thinking is when the very questions are arbitrary and pointless, and the suggestions unimaginative, putting the proverbial cart far before the metaphorical horse. But even, however rarely, when dealing with choices of creative / dramatic tension that might conceivably make an effective difference somehow, nevertheless even discussion at all to the point still tends to reduce to pointless expression of position and preference that remain genially arbitrary for wont of Critical Thinking about the real situation and whatever principles apply thereto. 

Indeed, Martin Luther King regarded creative tension as key to personal and societal growth, i.e., societal positive disintegration from conflict resolution, synthesis and even reconciliation, making nonviolent resistance more than merely a tool for confrontation, because nonviolent resistance also serves to mobilize support for the cause so that the resultant conflict on every level, motivates everyone to take a stand, on one side or the other.  A "mentally and spiritually aggressive" technique not only avoiding "external physical violence," but also "seek[ing] to avoid internal violence [to the] spirit."

3: Explore

Encourage wild and exaggerated s from every POV

Any source must be allowable for points of departure.

It's much easier to tame a wild idea later on, than it is to think of an immediately valid, viable, founded or Justified one in the first place. Heck, the 'wilder' the idea the better! By all means, pop out bizarre and unworkable ideas to see what they might spark off. No idea is too ridiculous. Humor is also creative, after all. For, not only truth but inspiration does come forth in jest or from Stream of Consciousness free association and permutations. 

Optionally, practice close and detailed observation and description of pertinent objects, phenomena and even visual "deep thought" fantasies, until novel and even insightful details and/or connections and associations arise.

So, allow, state any ideas, however outlandish or downright silly, deferring  judgment or evaluation, suspending disbelief, conscience and even good taste, however momentarily. 

"A genuinely unfashionable opinion is almost never given a fair hearing"

-George Orwell, 'The Freedom of the Press' essay preface to 'Animal Farm' - 1945

Exaggerating ideas to such extremes even as of the unfettered speculation in Science Fiction as a vehicle of satire, is often helpful in opening up thinking from fresh direction or POV.  And one can always put forward ideas, thoughts purely as creative points of departure, to spark off other people and not just as a solution to any problem in particular. 

Exploration, looking for Ideas, is ongoing and concurrent with Visioning. Because, just as Exploration is guided and defined by Visioning, so too is definitive Visioning Exploratory of and beyond the boundaries it seeks. In the words of George Bernanos, "there is no worse lie than a problem poorly stated." Hence, even problem solving, in and of itself, may limit the Socratic discourse of the questions rather than the answers and undermine the quest for personal meaning and new horizons.

3a: The Seven Creativity Tools

Click the link above to browse variant brainstorming exercises for making new variations and finding different correlations. Also see the creativity tools list.

3b: Ideation

Click the link above for an exhaustive list and explanation of different problem solving methods and approaches, the emphasis being on engineering. Also browse the Applied Imagination Question Summary and see: TRIZ.

3c: Techniques for working from Random Stimuli

Because the human brain is a self-organizing pattern creation system, always making connections, almost any random word will stimulate ideas on a given subject. Simply follow the associations and functions of whatever stimuli and also aspects thereof as a metaphor or even Forced Relationships/Analogy.

C U T - U P        William Burroughs and the cut-up technique...      C U T - U P        History of William Burroughs and the cut-up technique...              Exterminate All Rational Thought with: DadaDodo and WebCollage         "When I was a boy I felt that the role of rhyme in poetry was to compel one to find the unobvious because of the necessity of finding a word which rhymes. This forces novel associations and almost guarantees deviations from routine chains or trains of thought. It becomes paradoxically a sort of automatic mechanism of originality ..." — Stan Ulam, Adventures of a Mathematician

Stimulation Toolbox
Job Force	Takes inspiration from occupations.
Ricliché	Uses playfully distorted proverbs as prompts.
Sloganeeze	Draws inspiration from advertising slogans.
Web Economy Bullshit Generator	Very clever, but the verbs are often real verbs.
Star Force	Asks how famous people might solve your problem.
	Follow a chain of quotations to inspiration.
WordGizmo	Creates new words to inspire you.
CorpSpeak	Generates random corporate memos.
WriteExpress	Combines word parts and rhymes with your entry.
Naming Prompts	Suggests 100 ways to think about naming.
Idea-A-Day	Over 700 free ideas and growing.
	. Automatically create sets of items from a few examples.
	Free web-based anagram server from your input.
	"All the life's wisdom can be found in anagrams. Anagrams never lie."
Oulipo Definitional Literature	Words of a chosen text are replaced with their dictionary definitions.
Multibabel lost in translation	Any phrase translated by computer back and forth between 5 different languages.
Haiku