The 11 Best Online & Offline Brainstorming Techniques

Brainstorming sessions, whether in the office or online, may pose many challenges. 

For instance, some participants may refrain from sharing their ideas due to social anxiety and the fear of being shot down. Others may feel uncomfortable voicing their opinions in front of others or adjust their ideas to what they think those higher in the organizational hierarchy want to hear. 

Another challenge that significantly influences the result of your group brainstorming sessions is groupthink. It’s a psychological phenomenon where people in a close-knit group tend to go along with a decision or idea they think the rest of the group agrees with, even if they don't believe it's the best choice.

Overcoming these challenges is the key to achieving the ultimate goal of brainstorming: getting as many unique and diverse ideas as possible. 

In this article, we go over a few group brainstorming techniques you can try at the office or during online meetings to help you improve the efficiency of your brainstorming sessions. 

Group Brainstorming Techniques to Try at the Office

Group brainstorming can foster unity within your team or result in awkward moments of silence and tension. 

While it largely depends on the team dynamics and the environment you set for the session, you can use a few brainstorming techniques to facilitate a positive and productive group brainstorming experience at the office.

Let’s go over them. 

Mind Mapping

Sometimes, participants get stuck on the first idea instead of coming up with new ones. This is called “the anchoring effect,” and it’s one of the most common challenges of group brainstorming sessions. 

Mind mapping is a great visual brainstorming strategy that addresses this challenge by inspiring participants to come up with more ideas stemming from the original one. 

All you need for this exercise is a whiteboard or a large piece of paper. Then, place the main idea at the center of the board and draw lines outward to represent sub-ideas, which you can further extend into more branches with more ideas.

Groovy Brainstorming

Groovy brainstorming is a dynamic group brainstorming technique that can help you involve team members who don't feel comfortable speaking up in large groups and keep a balanced number of voices contributing opinions at any given time. 

For this exercise, split your team into smaller groups of about 3-4 people. Put on some groovy tunes and pass a couple of “how might we” questions around the room, assigning one question to each group. When the music stops, rotate the questions. 

The Five Whys

"The Five Whys" is a group brainstorming method that focuses on probing deeper into a problem by repeatedly asking "why" after each answer. Why five? Because you do it five times, like peeling layers of an onion. 

This technique helps your team find the real reasons behind the problem and come up with creative fixes. It’s a great tool to overcome groupthink and get to the heart of the matter during group brainstorming sessions.

Six Thinking Hats

The “six thinking hats” technique is an effective brainstorming tool for overcoming the challenge of unproductive debates and conflicting viewpoints during brainstorming.

For this brainstorming technique, at least six participants must wear different colored "hats.” Each "hat" represents a different way of thinking, such as objective, critical, emotional, optimistic, result-oriented, and process-oriented. By assigning participants roles based on these "hats," this technique encourages diverse perspectives. 

Rapid Ideation

Premature shooting down of ideas can often tank your brainstorming sessions. When ideas get shot down without a second thought, they don’t get a chance to grow and transform into something with potential. Plus, many people refrain from sharing their ideas out of fear that they will be considered “stupid” and instantly criticized. 

Rapid ideation is a technique that allows everyone to write down their ideas before they get criticized, thus giving all ideas a chance to grow. It consists of having your brainstormers write down ideas on a piece of paper during a specific timeframe. Once the timer sets off, ideas get evaluated as a team. 

Charrette

The Charette Procedure is a brainstorming technique that addresses a problem from several angles. It consists of breaking up your participants into smaller groups and having each group brainstorm ideas for a specific part of the problem. Then, the groups rotate and build on the ideas the previous group came up with. 

This technique helps to develop ideas in a structured and collaborative way and look at each segment of a problem separately, which can lead to more comprehensive and practical solutions. 

Brainstorming Techniques That Work Well in Online Meetings

Keeping everyone in your team engaged during remote brainstorming meetings can be even more challenging than during in-person sessions. Here are 4 effective brainstorming techniques you can use during your next online meeting. 

Brain-Netting 

Brain-netting is an online brainstorming method that involves using a shared digital platform - like a shared Google Sheets spreadsheet or, better yet, an idea management software like Ideanote - to allow your team to contribute their ideas anytime.  

The premise of brain-netting is allowing everyone to share their ideas spontaneously to create an ever-growing list of ideas. Later on, these ideas can be reviewed and discussed in a brainstorming session, whether in-person or remote.

This technique is effective because it allows everyone to share their ideas anonymously without fear of judgment. Plus, it enables team members to contribute ideas at any time, meaning the ideas that come to them while walking their dog won't go to waste.

Also Read: Reverse Brainstorming: Definition, Examples & Techniques

Brainwriting 

Brainwriting is a non-verbal brainstorming method that encourages participants to generate ideas individually before sharing them with the group. This technique bypasses the anchoring effect by leaving group input for later and unbalanced conversations by allowing everyone to share their ideas. 

Each participant writes down three ideas related to the topic of the brainstorming session on a slip of paper (in an in-person session) or, ideally, an idea management platform like Ideanote (in an online meeting). Then, they pass their ideas to the next person, who builds upon them. 

After everyone had a chance to build upon other people’s ideas, the group discusses every idea and decides which ones to pursue. 

Round-Robin Brainstorming 

Round-robin is a collaborative brainstorming technique that requires participants to share ideas one by one. It has four unbreakable rules: 

1. Each participant can only share one idea during each round. 
2. No one can criticize, discuss, or elaborate on ideas before the round is over. 
3. No one can skip their turn. Everyone must contribute a unique idea. 
4. If someone says that their idea was already contributed, you can give them more time to think of a new one and come back to them at the end of the round. 

This is a great technique to avoid having certain individuals monopolize the conversation and overshadow other voices.  

With Ideanote, you can easily capture every idea in real time and then have everyone on the team collectively evaluate and elaborate on those ideas. 

Also read: How to run a brainstorming session

Lightning Decision Jam

Lightning Decision Jam is a great brainstorming technique for meetings with a remote team. Its main goal is to come up with ideas and quickly determine which ones to pursue. 

To run this exercise with your remote team, you’ll need an idea management tool where each team member can write down the following things: 

1. The positives of the problem (aka, what’s currently working well). 
2. The negatives of the problem (aka, what needs to be urgently addressed). 

After clearly stating the positives and negatives of the problem, you’ll work for a few minutes on reframing the problems into questions and coming up with solutions. With Ideanote, you can quickly capture those ideas as they come. 

Then, you’ll discuss the solutions your team came up with and decide which ideas are the best to pursue. This exercise may take between 30 to 90 minutes, depending on the size of your team. 

Also read: How to prepare a brainstorming session

The Asynchronous Brainstorming Technique

Sometimes, you can’t reunite everybody in a brainstorming meeting, but you still want a continuous flow of new ideas. In those cases, you can use the asynchronous brainstorming technique. This is an excellent option for remote teams and those who feel uncomfortable sharing ideas in a group. 

Asynchronous brainstorming is precisely what its name foreshadows: independent brainstorming that everyone on your team can do at their own pace. When everyone brainstorms independently, it can lead to more diverse and unique ideas since the discussion won’t be controlled by the few most dominant voices. 

The best way to manage asynchronous brainstorming is with a digital idea management tool. With a cloud-based solution like Ideanote, everyone on your team can contribute ideas anytime by adding them to the platform.