 Brainstorming can be a great way to come up with new ideas but it can quickly get out of control. Learn the secrets to run a successful brainstorming session and get your creative juices flowing. I'm Chris and I've been leading design workshops for companies and clients for the past five years. But I've noticed people run brainstorming sessions all wrong. Let's address the problem with an example. When you thought your team would generate great new ideas and creative solutions during brainstorming sessions but you quickly realised the session is failing miserably. Limitations such as chaotic agenda, fear of being judged, loud mouths dominating the session, participants struggling to generate thoughts or ideas being criticised by one person can turn your brainstorming session into a flop. So how do you ensure smooth and productive session that can get creative juices flowing? The answer is by planning carefully. Put together a well-stated problem and use the right framework and strategies that work for your team. I'll tell you the most common mistakes junior designers make when running brainstorming sessions later in the video. But first, let's define brainstorming. Brainstorming allows people to explore new ideas by thinking outside of the box. It's a handy way to encourage genuine collaboration and interaction with your team. Here's how I run brainstorming sessions step by step. First, decide whether a group or an individual brainstorming session would work best for the problem. During a group session, feel free to break up the groups into teams and mix up the people within those teams to alter interpersonal dynamics. Then, select your brainstorming method. The ones I recommend are brainwriting and brainwalking. But there are many other methods that you can explore such as the five whys, mind mapping, round robin, smart analysis, crazy eights, and a lot more. Three, you want to gather the right team. Who needs to be in the room and who can help you come up with interesting solutions? Four, you want to set the agenda and be clear about the time constraints. Time constraints actually promote creativity. Five, you want to define the problem and set boundaries for the solution. What are we working on? What aren't we working on? Six, do brainstorming warm-up exercises to help your team's mental gears get moving before ideation sessions. Use relatable topics like describe your dream home. Name as many basketball teams as you can. Think of as many uses for paper games as possible. Those are just some examples you could use. Step seven, set ground rules. Be clear and don't hesitate to remind the team about these rules. Some rules I like to use is welcome unusual ideas. Remove criticism from the equation. Avoid praising and treat each idea equally. Focus on quantity over quality. Keep it short and simple. And finally, be respectful. Step eight, summarise the brainstorming session digitally and only share the most critical information. This will make the information easier to digest too. Tools that I typically use are Figma, Mural, Google Slides or Notion. The ideal brainstorming session should produce as many ideas as possible and participants are able to form their ideas freely without fear or judgement. But sometimes things just don't go according to plan. So what are the most common mistakes that inexperienced designers face when they facilitate a brainstorming session? Inexperienced designers often fail to set expectations and control the room. What happens most often is that senior outspoken stakeholders take over the entire session. They start to give their feedback and opinions on why those ideas are bad and start selling why their ideas are good and that is a huge no. Setting up a few well thought out brainstorming rules can help a session go from dud to achievement. My favourite brainstorming sessions are ones that promote ideas that are unexpected, look at the problem from a different perspective or completely reframe my thinking. From this emerges productive conversations, interesting non-obvious solutions and a clear path to exploration. In summary, brainstorming can promote creative thinking, bring a team together and help you generate incredible new ideas that can potentially solve a business problem. Make sure that you actually do something with your brainstorming session that you've created. Commit to some follow-up actions as a team and see how far these ideas can take you. Just don't let it go to waste. If you're interested in learning more about brainstorming with detailed guides and templates, check out the link in the description. Or, or, or, or hit the big red button for another play-by-play breakdown of UX frameworks. Bye!