The Ultimate Guide to Running Better Brainstorming Sessions

If your brainstorming sessions feel like meetings where people shout random ideas into the void while someone frantically writes on a whiteboard, and then nothing ever happens with those ideas—you're not alone.

Most brainstorming sessions fail. Not because the team lacks creativity, but because the process is fundamentally broken.

Here's what typically happens:

The loudest person dominates
People self-censor "stupid" ideas
The boss's opinion anchors everyone else
Good ideas get lost in the noise
Someone says "there are no bad ideas" (but everyone knows there are)
Nothing gets implemented afterward

The result? Wasted time, frustrated teams, and a graveyard of sticky notes.

But brainstorming doesn't have to be this way. With the right structure, facilitation, and follow-up, brainstorming sessions can consistently produce breakthrough ideas that actually get used.

This guide will show you how.

Why Most Brainstorming Sessions Fail

Before we fix it, let's diagnose the problem.

1. No Divergence-Convergence Structure

Most sessions try to generate AND evaluate ideas simultaneously. This kills creativity. Your brain can't create and judge at the same time—the editor murders the artist before the idea fully forms.

In a room with hierarchy (which is every workplace), people self-censor based on what they think the boss wants to hear. Junior team members especially.

3. Anchoring Bias

The first idea spoken becomes the anchor. Every subsequent idea is either a variation of it or a reaction against it. True divergence never happens.

4. No Pre-Work

People walk in cold and expect lightning to strike. But creativity often needs solitary incubation time before collaborative synthesis.

5. No Follow-Up Process

Great ideas on sticky notes, group photo for Slack, see you next week. No evaluation criteria, no ownership, no next steps. The graveyard grows.

6. Facilitator is Also Participant

The person running the session is also pitching ideas. This means no one is watching group dynamics, managing energy, or ensuring psychological safety.

The 5-Phase Brainstorming Method

This structure separates ideation from evaluation, balances solo and group work, and ensures ideas actually lead somewhere.

Time required: 90 minutes (can be shortened, but don't skip phases)

Ideal group size: 4-8 people (larger groups split into teams)

Required: Facilitator, clear problem statement, materials, follow-up plan

Before the Session: Preparation (The Work Nobody Does)

Most brainstorming failures happen before the session even starts.

1. Define the Problem Statement (Not the Solution)

Bad problem statement: "How can we improve our website?"

Too vague, invites surface solutions

Good problem statement: "How might we help first-time visitors understand what we do within 10 seconds?"

Specific, measurable, user-focused

Great problem statement: "First-time visitors spend only 6 seconds on our homepage before leaving. How might we immediately communicate our value to people who've never heard of us?"

Includes the real constraint, names the audience, invites creative solutions

2. Send Pre-Work (Optional but Powerful)

Email participants 24-48 hours before:

The problem statement
Any relevant background (data, customer quotes, past attempts)
One reflection question: "What's one assumption we're making about this problem that might be wrong?"

This lets ideas percolate. People who need processing time (most people) arrive prepared.

3. Prepare Your Materials

What you'll need:

Timer (visible to everyone)
Sticky notes (multiple colors)
Sharpies (not thin pens—forces brevity)
Large surface (whiteboard, wall, or digital equivalent for remote)
Voting dots or markers
Randomization tool (dice, cards, online generator—more on this later)

4. Choose a Facilitator

The facilitator should NOT be:

The most senior person in the room
Someone with a strong opinion on the solution
Participating heavily in ideation

The facilitator SHOULD be:

Neutral about outcomes
Good at reading room dynamics
Comfortable with silence
Able to enforce structure kindly but firmly

Phase 1: Diverge Alone (15 minutes)

The first ideas should happen in silence.

Why It Works

Removes social pressure
Prevents anchoring to someone else's idea
Gives introverts equal voice
Produces more diverse thinking

How to Run It

Facilitator script: "We have 15 minutes to generate as many ideas as possible. Work alone. Write one idea per sticky note. Quantity over quality—we want volume. Don't judge your ideas. Definitely don't judge other people's ideas yet. Just get everything out of your brain."

Set a timer. Work in silence.

Pro tips:

Encourage ridiculous ideas explicitly: "If you're not embarrassed by at least one idea, you're holding back."
Set a quantity target: "Everyone aim for at least 10 ideas."
Use music (optional): Instrumental background music can ease the silence without distracting.

What you'll see:

First 3-5 ideas come fast (obvious solutions)
Minutes 6-10 are slower (digging deeper)
Minutes 11-15 often produce the weird, interesting stuff

Now we get the ideas out, but we still don't evaluate them.

How to Run It

Facilitator script: "Everyone put your sticky notes on the wall/board. As you place them, read each one aloud. No commentary. No discussion. No 'I love that' or 'that won't work.' Just read and place. We're creating a shared landscape of ideas."

Go around the room. Each person shares their ideas.

Pro tips:

Enforce the "no commentary" rule strictly. Even positive reactions ("great idea!") create pressure.
Group similar ideas loosely as they're added, but don't force categorization.
If someone tries to explain an idea, gently redirect: "Just the idea for now—we'll discuss soon."

What this achieves:

Everyone hears all ideas without attachment to who said what
Visual clustering starts to happen naturally
Patterns and themes emerge

Phase 3: Random Combinations (20 minutes) ⭐

This is where the magic happens. Most brainstorms stop before this phase, which is why they're mediocre.

Why Random Combinations Work

When you force two unrelated ideas together, your brain has to make connections. This creates novel solutions that linear thinking would never reach.

It's based on bisociation—Arthur Koestler's concept that creativity happens at the intersection of unrelated frames of reference.

How to Run It

Facilitator script: "Now we're going to force some weird combinations. I'm going to randomly select two ideas from the board and read them together. Your job is to find a connection, build on it, or create something new from the collision. Yes, even if they seem completely unrelated. Especially if they seem unrelated."

Method 1: Random Draw

Assign numbers to all sticky notes
Use dice, random number generator, or draw cards to select two
Read them aloud: "Idea 17 + Idea 42: [read both]"
Group discusses: "What if we combined these? What does this spark?"

Method 2: Random Attribute Mixing If you're designing a product/service, randomly combine attributes:

Pick a random industry (roll: education)
Pick a random feature from the ideas (filter: "gamification")
"What if we applied gamification principles from education to our problem?"

Method 3: Use a Randomizer Tool Have a deck of random prompts, constraints, or concepts. Draw one and apply it to an existing idea.

"Take your favorite idea and apply this constraint: Make it 10x faster"
"Take idea #8 and apply this: Design it for the opposite audience"

Work for 15 minutes:

Generate 5-10 combinations
Discuss briefly what sparks from each
Write new ideas that emerge on different colored sticky notes
These derivative ideas are often the breakthrough ones

What this achieves:

Breaks linear thinking
Forces novel connections
Surfaces ideas hiding in the combination space
Makes the session fun (weird combinations are entertaining)

Phase 4: Converge and Cluster (15 minutes)

Now we organize and start evaluating.

How to Run It

Step 1: Cluster (5 minutes)

Facilitator script: "Let's organize these into themes. What patterns do you see?"

Work together to group similar ideas. Label each cluster.

Common themes that emerge:

Quick wins vs. long-term plays
Low-cost vs. high-investment
Incremental improvements vs. radical changes
Different user segments

Step 2: Dot Voting (5 minutes)

Each person gets 3-5 votes (use stickers, markers, or dots).

Facilitator script: "You have 5 votes. Put them on the ideas you think are most worth exploring. You can spread them out or put all 5 on one idea. Vote for feasibility, impact, novelty—whatever criteria matter to you."

Vote in silence. No lobbying.

Step 3: Discussion (5 minutes)

Look at the vote distribution:

High-consensus ideas (everyone voted for them)
Split-vote ideas (strong support, strong opposition)
Outliers (low votes but someone loves them)

Facilitator questions:

"What do the top 3 have in common?"
"Are we surprised by anything that ranked high?"
"Should we save any low-vote ideas that might be worth exploring separately?"

Phase 5: Action Planning (30 minutes)

This is where most brainstorms die. Don't skip this.

Step 1: Choose 3 Ideas to Develop (5 minutes)

Pick:

One safe bet (high feasibility, likely to work)
One ambitious swing (harder to execute, high potential impact)
One wildcard (weird, risky, might be brilliant or might flop)

This portfolio approach balances innovation with practical progress.

Step 2: Rapid Prototyping Discussion (15 minutes)

For each chosen idea, spend 5 minutes answering:

What would a minimal version look like?
- What's the smallest thing we could build to test this?
What's our biggest assumption?
- What has to be true for this to work?
How could we test that assumption cheaply?
- Before building the whole thing, how do we validate the key question?
What would we need to make this real?
- Resources, time, people, approvals

Write these down for each idea.

Step 3: Assign Ownership (10 minutes)

Ideas without owners die.

For each of the 3 chosen ideas:

Owner: Who's driving this forward? (One person, not a committee)
Next step: What happens in the next 48 hours?
Check-in: When do we review progress? (Set a date now)

Facilitator script: "Who wants to own [Idea #1]? This means you're responsible for the next step, even if you're delegating the actual work."

Wait for volunteers. If no one volunteers, either the idea isn't compelling or the work isn't clear. Discuss why.

Common Facilitation Mistakes (And How to Fix Them)

Mistake 1: Letting Discussion Happen During Divergence

Signs: People start debating ideas in Phase 1 or 2

Fix: "Hold that thought—we'll discuss in Phase 4. Right now we're just generating."

Mistake 2: The Highest-Paid Person's Opinion (HiPPO) Dominates

Signs: Everyone's ideas start sounding like variations of the boss's idea

Fix: Have senior people share last in Phase 2. Or ask them to play devil's advocate: "Your job is to push against your own instinct."

Mistake 3: Silence = Awkwardness (So You Fill It)

Signs: You're uncomfortable with quiet and keep talking

Fix: Count to 10 in your head before speaking. Silence is thinking. Protect it.

Mistake 4: Skipping the Weird Phase (Phase 3)

Signs: Team wants to jump straight to voting after initial ideas

Fix: "I know this feels unnatural, but trust the process. The best ideas come from forced combinations. Give me 15 minutes."

Mistake 5: No Follow-Up Accountability

Signs: Great session, vague next steps, nothing happens

Fix: Don't end the meeting without owners and dates. Send a follow-up email within 24 hours with commitments.

Adaptations for Different Contexts

Remote/Distributed Teams

Use digital whiteboarding tools:

Miro, Mural, FigJam for visual collaboration
Google Jamboard for simplicity
Even Google Docs can work (each person adds ideas to a shared list)

Key adjustments:

Phase 1 happens in a shared document everyone edits simultaneously
Use poll features for voting
Breakout rooms for small group combinations in Phase 3
Record the session so people can reference it later

Large Groups (15+ people)

Split into teams of 4-6:

Each team runs the full 5 phases independently
Phase 6: Teams present their top 2 ideas to the full group (10 min per team)
Full group votes on which ideas to pursue across all teams

Short Timeline (30-45 minutes)

Condense:

Phase 1: 7 minutes (solo ideation)
Phase 2: 5 minutes (share)
Phase 3: 10 minutes (3-4 random combinations only)
Phase 4: 8 minutes (cluster and vote)
Phase 5: 10 minutes (pick top 1 idea, assign owner, define next step)

You'll get less volume, but the structure still works.

Ongoing Ideation (Not a One-Time Session)

Make it a ritual:

Weekly 30-minute "constraint challenge" sessions
Monthly deep-dive brainstorms for strategic questions
Quarterly innovation sessions with external provocateurs

Build a culture where structured ideation is normal, not a special event.

Advanced Techniques

The "How Might We" Reframe

If you're stuck on a problem statement, reframe it as "How might we...?"

Original: "Our app has low engagement."

Reframes:

How might we make the app something people want to open daily?
How might we deliver value before people even open the app?
How might we make not using the app feel like a loss?
How might we turn users into evangelists who pull others in?

Each reframe opens different solution spaces.

The "Six Thinking Hats" Evaluation

After clustering ideas, evaluate each from 6 perspectives (Edward de Bono's method):

White Hat (Facts): What data supports or challenges this idea?
Red Hat (Emotions): Gut reaction—does it feel right?
Black Hat (Risks): What could go wrong? Why might it fail?
Yellow Hat (Benefits): What's the best-case outcome?
Green Hat (Creativity): How could we make it even better?
Blue Hat (Process): Does this align with our goals?

Spend 2 minutes on each hat for your top idea.

The "Premortem"

For your top idea, imagine it failed spectacularly.

"It's one year later. We implemented this idea and it was a disaster. What went wrong?"

This surfaces risks and assumptions in a psychologically safe way (it's hypothetical failure, not criticism).

The "Worst Possible Idea"

Stuck? Try reverse brainstorming.

"What's the absolute worst solution to this problem? How could we make it worse?"

Generate terrible ideas for 5 minutes, then flip them:

Worst: Make the sign-up process 20 steps long
Flip: What if we eliminated sign-up entirely?

Sometimes the inverse of a bad idea is a breakthrough.

Specific Techniques for Different Stages

For Phase 1 (Solo Ideation)

SCAMPER Prompts (use these if people are stuck):

Substitute: What could we replace?
Combine: What could we merge together?
Adapt: What could we adjust or tweak?
Modify: What could we magnify or minify?
Put to another use: What if we repurposed this?
Eliminate: What could we remove entirely?
Reverse: What if we flipped it backwards?

Quantity Forcing: "Everyone must generate 15 ideas. Even if the last 5 are terrible. Especially if they're terrible."

For Phase 3 (Random Combinations)

Random Industry Cross-Pollination:

Roll a die to select a random industry (1=Healthcare, 2=Education, 3=Entertainment, 4=Hospitality, 5=Sports, 6=Finance)
"How would [industry] solve our problem?"
"What could we steal from [industry] and apply here?"

Random Constraint Application:

"What if we had to solve this with $100?"
"What if we had to solve this by tomorrow?"
"What if we could only use existing tools/resources?"
"What if we had unlimited budget but only one month?"
"What if our solution had to be 100% analog/physical?"
"What if it had to work without internet?"

Forced Analogies:

"This problem is like _______ because _______"
Fill in the blank with random nouns (use a generator or pull from a list)
Explore the analogy: "If our problem is like a traffic jam, what causes traffic jams? How do they resolve? What can we learn?"

For Phase 4 (Evaluation)

Impact/Effort Matrix:

Draw a 2x2 grid:

X-axis: Effort (low to high)
Y-axis: Impact (low to high)

Place each top idea on the matrix:

High impact, low effort: Do these immediately (quick wins)
High impact, high effort: Strategic priorities (plan carefully)
Low impact, low effort: Deprioritize (not worth it)
Low impact, high effort: Avoid (resource drain)

Weighted Scoring:

Give each idea a score based on multiple criteria:

Idea	Feasibility (1-10)	Impact (1-10)	Novelty (1-10)	Cost (1-10)	Total
A	8	7	6	9	30
B	6	9	8	5	28

Adjust weights if some criteria matter more (e.g., feasibility = 2x weight).

What to Do With Ideas That Don't Make the Cut

Don't delete them. Create an "idea parking lot":

Digital: Shared doc, Notion database, or Airtable
Physical: Dedicated wall or binder

Why keep them:

Context changes. An idea that's impractical now might be perfect in 6 months.
Combination fodder. Future sessions can remix old ideas with new ones.
Reference. Prevents rehashing the same discussions ("We already explored that—here's why we didn't pursue it").

Review the parking lot quarterly. Resurrect ideas whose time has come.

Measuring Brainstorm Success

Track these over time:

Immediate metrics:

Number of ideas generated per session
Diversity of ideas (how many distinct categories?)
Participant satisfaction ("Did this feel productive?")
Time from ideation to decision

Long-term metrics:

Implementation rate (what % of top ideas got built/tried?)
Success rate (what % of implemented ideas worked?)
Time to impact (how long from idea to measurable result?)
Repeat participation (do people want to come to the next one?)

Warning signs your process isn't working:

Same people dominate every session
Ideas are incremental variations of existing solutions
Nothing ever gets implemented
People start skipping sessions or showing up unprepared

Sample Session Plan (90 Minutes)

0:00-0:05 — Welcome and problem statement review

State the problem clearly
Share any relevant context/data
Answer clarifying questions
Set expectations for the session structure

0:05-0:20 — Phase 1: Solo ideation (silent)

15 minutes generating ideas alone
Aim for 10+ ideas per person
One idea per sticky note

0:20-0:30 — Phase 2: Share without discussion

Each person places and reads their ideas
No commentary or debate
Start to see natural clusters

0:30-0:50 — Phase 3: Random combinations

Facilitator randomly combines ideas
Group explores what sparks from each combination
Generate new "hybrid" ideas
This is where breakthroughs happen

0:50-1:05 — Phase 4: Cluster and vote

Group similar ideas into themes (5 min)
Dot voting on most promising ideas (5 min)
Brief discussion of vote patterns (5 min)

1:05-1:30 — Phase 5: Action planning

Select 3 ideas to move forward (1 safe, 1 ambitious, 1 wildcard)
Answer key questions for each
Assign owners and next steps
Schedule check-in meeting

1:30 — End on time

Send follow-up summary within 24 hours
Include: top 3 ideas, owners, next steps, timeline

The Follow-Up Email (Send Within 24 Hours)

Subject: [Project Name] Brainstorm — Next Steps

What we explored: [Problem statement]

Ideas generated: [X total ideas]

Top 3 moving forward:

[Idea Name]
- Owner: [Name]
- Next step: [Specific action]
- Check-in: [Date]
[Idea Name]
- Owner: [Name]
- Next step: [Specific action]
- Check-in: [Date]
[Idea Name]
- Owner: [Name]
- Next step: [Specific action]
- Check-in: [Date]

Full idea archive: [Link to board/doc with all ideas]

Next brainstorm: [Date, if recurring]

Thanks to everyone for bringing creativity and energy. Let's make these real.

Final Thoughts

Great brainstorming isn't about generating the most ideas. It's about creating the conditions where the right ideas can emerge and then actually doing something with them.

Structure isn't the enemy of creativity—it's the container that makes creativity possible.

The 5-phase method works because it:

Separates creation from judgment (diverge then converge)
Balances solo and group thinking
Forces novel combinations (where breakthroughs hide)
Ensures ideas lead to action

You don't need elaborate tools or fancy workshops. You need a clear problem, a neutral facilitator, a structured process, and a bias toward action.

Try This Tomorrow

Next time you need to brainstorm:

Write a specific problem statement (include the real constraint)
Send it to participants 24 hours early
Run even a condensed version of the 5 phases (30 minutes is enough)
End with one owner and one next step
Follow up within 24 hours

That's it. You'll get better ideas than 95% of brainstorming sessions.

And if you want to go deeper, use the random combination phase. That's where the magic happens.

Most teams stop too early, right when they're about to break through to something interesting. Don't be most teams.

The best ideas are hiding in the combinations you haven't tried yet.

The Ultimate Guide to Running Better Brainstorming Sessions

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