Does Brainstorming Actually Work?

It's a staple of corporate retreats: gather staff, whip out the flip chart and announce that "there are no bad ideas". Many attendees just groan inwardly. Are they just cynics, or are they onto something?

Apparently several studies back up the Dilberts of the world, at least to an extent. According to an article in this past Sunday's New York Times:

That classic tool introduced by Alex Osborn in 1948 has been proved in a number of studies over the last 20 years to be far less effective than generally believed. "He had it right in terms of group process," says Drew Boyd, a businessman based in Cincinnati who blogs and speaks often about innovation. "But he had it wrong in terms of the method."

The problems with that method will be familiar to any corporate veteran:

...researchers have shown repeatedly that individuals working alone generate more ideas than groups acting in concert. Among the problems are these: Throwing in an idea for public consideration generates fear of failure, and workers looking to advance their own interests often keep their best ideas to themselves until a more opportune time.

But this is not to say that groups per se foil creativity. In fact the article, titled "For Innovators, There Is Brainpower in Numbers" argues just the opposite case. The trick is in forming the right kind of group:

Keith Sawyer, a researcher at Washington University in St. Louis, calls this "group genius," and in his book of the same name he introduces a scientific method called interaction analysis to the study of creativity. Through studying verbal cues, body language and incremental adjustments during team innovation efforts, Mr. Sawyer shows that what we experience as a flash of insight has actually percolated in social interaction for quite some time.

Regulars at the Project Bar-B-Q conference on the future of audio (and, more recently, the related Project Horseshoe game industry conference) see this kind of group creativity occur year after year. On a ranch in the Texas hill country, organizers led by George "The Fat Man" Sanger assemble what they call The Group Brain, made up of attendees who in their daily work lives often vie at competing firms. By the end of a long weekend they do produce innovative, and sometimes ground-breaking, results.

And flip charts are involved. But they only come out after a crucial preparatory evening, involving no small amount of food, drink, good-natured ridicule and - perhaps most importantly, raucous music-making. The jibes and jamming serve as creative warm-up exercises, break down inhibitions and form bonds. It also no doubt helps that many in the the self-selected group begin from positions of mutual respect.