Brain writing: How to Neutralize the Loudmouths.

Script

I recently had an experience where a CEO asked me to facilitatean off-site. This was a really important off-site. He was bringinghis key sales and marketing team together so that they couldbrainstorm ways to try to increase their sales and he wanted at allcost to prevent this overly dominant team member from taking over.We devised a plan that involved a technique called "brain writing."The most important thing is is that brain writing is notbrainstorming. Brainstorming is the simultaneous oral generation ofideas. Brain writing is the simultaneous written generation ofideas. But the whole point is is that when you're writing ideas, noone can interrupt you, no one can block your thoughts. Then thosecan be shared later with the other team members. So the first 10minutes of the off-site worked like this we asked everybody in themeeting to take as many cards as they wanted, to write down all oftheir ideas for increasing motor oil sales. And we told them towrite as many ideas as possible, setting aside feasibility, settingaside legal issues. Every idea was written on its own card. So ifsomebody had 10 ideas, they took 10 cards. If somebody had 15ideas, they'd take 15 cards, and so on. So for 10 minutes, therewas complete silence. I had two rules which I strongly enforced: noguessing and no confessions. What I mean by that is, I didn't letanyone sign their name on a card or identify their idea in any way.Because when we taped the ideas on the wall, everyone got to readthe ideas and vote on them. When we posted the ideas on the wall, Ididn't want anybody to guess who suggested what idea because itreally should be a meritocracy of ideas. It shouldn't be apopularity contest. So within 10 minutes, we had over 200 ideasgenerated. Then we had another 10 or 15 minutes where everybodyreviewed the ideas on the cards, then they took some of the Post-itnotes and they voted for the ideas that they found the mostexciting. The overly dominant people had been neutralized. Thenormally quiet, shy people had been energized. Everyone hailed thisas the most successful off-site that this company has ever had, andit was all because of a little planning, a small amount ofmaterials, and a lot of focus on a process. And now they have thetools to do it again at their next off-site: brain writing.

1. Is the brainwriting example outlined in the video adecision-making process or a problem solving process? Would thenominal group technique work in this example? How was brainwritingsimilar, yet different from the nominal group technique?
2. Would the Delphi technique have worked in the example from thevideo? Would it have been appropriate, or even the betterchoice?
3. Which of the four stages of the creative process is thebrainwriting technique from the video tapping?