(extracted from my unfinished process improvement guide here)
Purpose Using creative and lateral thinking, brainstorming uses the collective thinking power of a group of people to come up with a wide range of ideas. A good brainstorming session will produce scores of ideas. Click here for an example of ideas raised during a brainstorming session within a manufacturing operation. Similar issues may be seen in any organisation and although many of them may have already have been acknowledged, writing them down means that they can then be dealt with, for example in an action plan. Click here to download an action plan template in MS Word format.
The main uses of brainstorming in process improvement are:
Two main methods can be used:
Flip chart
One person writes up on a flip chart all the ideas from the rest of the group.
Post it notes
Working in silence, over 10 minutes, all members of a brainstorming group write their ideas on post it notes using marker pens and capital letters. The same colour marker pens and post it notes are used by everyone and completed post it notes are stuck on the wall. During the 10 minutes, these post it notes accumulate and can be read by all. Any ideas can be written up - no criticism of them is allowed until the evaluation of ideas later. Reading a post it note will trigger new ideas. In practice, post it notes accumulate at an increasing rate which then reduces as ideas are exhausted.
The second method is, in my opinion, the best as the post it notes can then be grouped and arranged to construct a fishbone or cause and effect diagram . Whatever method is used, the result will be number of ideas which then need to be evaluated. If the post it note method is used, then these post it notes will then be grouped into clusters of associated ideas, for example men, methods, machinery, measurement, material, money classifications or who, what, when, where, why and how These classifications are also used in fishbone or cause and effect diagrams and process questioning . During this classification process, some duplication of ideas may be seen, and some ideas may be regarded as obvious non starters. When ideas are duplicated, then the amount of duplication indicates the consensus in the group. The final set of ideas can then be evaluated further using TPN analysis. When starting process improvement, it is worth remembering the slogan 'small steps quickly' i.e. don't try to do too much at once in case it cannot be completed.
When you make a successful improvement, make sure that you publicise it especially if this results in a significant time or cost saving.