Brainstorming is inefficient… that is brainstorming in a group, which happens to be the original definition but is often liberally applied to solo ideation as well. My impetus for writing this article was inspired by countless futile experiences to harness the value of multiple minds in a team and also a recent reading of an excellent Harvard Business Review article by UCL Business Psychology professor Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic.

The issues that arise from brainstorming include:

• Fear of judgement of ideas by less confident individuals (social anxiety).
• Reduced contribution by weaker individuals dependant on the stronger ones to carry the team (social-loafing).
• Reduced contribution by the smarter individuals due to lack of inspiration or challenge (regression to the mean).
• Reduced output over time as only one idea of a contributor can be communicated at any moment for others to understand it (production blocking).

The article goes on to explain why many organisations continue to use it. But what are the implications for UX, especially in environments where group input from other designers, stakeholders and even users is common?

Brainstorming can be a part of activities where an impasse is met in making progress, especially in defining crucial design stages of an app. An example could be feature prioritisation exercises with MoSCoW or affinity mapping where group consensus is needed and where brainstorming could be unproductive. Methods like affinity diagramming exist to counter complacency by allowing a transition of spoken communication to a more visually oriented one.

Within the UX designer’s arsenal lie dedicated group workshops like design studio which, ultimately, has an element of brainstorming to it. In my experience, they’re usually productive exercises; perhaps this is due to the iterative nature of distinct splitting off (where the ideation takes place) and reconvening phases. When done properly, pitching in a design studio is quick and can bring across multiple ideas to the group via rough wireframe sketches in a short space of time.

Potentially, the key message here is to encourage your ideating group to rebalance their efforts from talking less to doing more within an agile structured framework.

Original article: https://hbr.org/2015/03/why-group-brainstorming-is-a-waste-of-time