So you’re wondering how to improve the efficiency of your department or your team and think your people could be mined for golden ideas.
How about a brainstorming session? It could be a popular method, but is it better than having workers develop ideas on their own?
Psychologists at the University of Texas at Arlington researched the number and quality of ideas produced by brainstorming sessions. They looked at whether people brainstorming in a group came up with better ideas than four people did when they brainstormed alone. The group of brainstormers came up with just half as many ideas as the four people who brainstormed alone.
They also discovered, however, that people brainstorming alone came up with good ideas after the group brainstorming sessions.
One professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education says the best way to get good ideas is to get people to write them down and bring them in. If you really want group diversity, don’t include more than five to seven people. While brainstorming is plainly inefficient, you might do it because you want everyone to think they have a voice.
If you must brainstorm, professor Paul Baard of Fordham University suggests you start with a statement. Quoted in the Wall Street Journal, he recommends:    “No one, present or not here, is going to be hurt during this process. We will not be using ridicule …”