Lecture 5: Personal Brainstorming Elena Dubrova ELE/EECS/KTH
Lecture 5: Personal Brainstorming
Elena Dubrova
ELE/EECS/KTH
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Problems of group brainstorming
• Group brainstorming often faces problems such as
– distraction
– social loafing: peoples make less effort to
achieve a goal when they work in a group than
when they work alone
– evaluation apprehension
– production blocking: tendency for one individual
to block or inhibit other people during a group
discussion
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Personal brainstorming
• Many believe that personal brainstorming is more
efficient than group brainstorming
• Many problems of group brainstorming are avoided
– In a group, one may not have time to think of an
idea, or may be distracted or forget about his/her
own idea before having an opportunity to share it
– Each thinks with his/her own speed
– No danger of criticism
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Problem statement and analysis
1. State your problem clearly in one sentence
– Remember that the problem clearly defined is half
solved
2. Write down any supporting information you know
about this problem
– Use “free writing style”: produce a lot of raw material
– Your mental activity may be blocked by apathy, self-
criticism, resentment, anxiety about deadlines, fear
of failure or censure, or other forms of resistance
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What may help to ”free” you
• Tell yourself that nobody else will see what you
write
• Pay no attention to grammar, spelling,
punctuation, neatness, or style
• Imagine yourself explaining the problem to
someone. Some people are “speakers” rather
than “writers”. They need an audience. If you are
such a person, use a dictaphone
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Problem analysis, cont.
• When you have finished the “first draft”, review
your notes
– Mark passages that contain ideas or phrases that
might be worth elaborating further
• Try see connections, relationships, and
implications in the information you have
collected
– This is usually easier to do once the information is
written on paper compared to if you would just kept
all of this information in your head
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Problem analysis, cont.
• By writing down everything you know abot the
problem, you are collecting pieces of puzzle
necessary for your brain to produce a complete
picture and find a solution
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Finding solution
3. Brainstorm on your problem using rules similar to
group brainstorming:
– Don't censor yourself
– Write down every idea
– Try generate a large number of ideas (› 10)
– Most creative ideas often come last
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Finding solution, cont.
• It may help if you persuade yourself with
absolute conviction that a solution to your
problem already exists
– Your job is to find it
• Think about people who have faced problems
similar to the one you are facing
– What strategies or solutions did they use?
– Can any elements of their solutions can be
adapted to your case?
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Brainstorming retreat
• It has been demonstrated that rhythmic activity of
a brain is enhanced by reducing input signals
• Try going for a week to some quite inspirational
place disconnecting completely from email,
mobile phone, and everyday problems
– think, invent and make notes
• You will be amazed at how clear you brain have
became and the kind of ideas you are capable to
generate
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Bill Gates’s example
• Several times a year, Bill Gates used to take a
stack of books on the latest business trends to a
remote cabin in the woods where he would
spends a week of uninterrupted reading and
thinking
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Other useful techniques
• There are many other techniques which may
help you thinking creatively
• For example, lotus blossom technique is
intended to make you to look for a multiplicity of
ways to approach a problem
• The willingness to consider different perspectives
and alternative approaches may broaden your
thinking and open you up to the new possibilities
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Example
• Add together these 4 numbers in your head:
398, 395, 396, 399
• It is not easy in the conventional way
• But if you notice that they can be rewritten as:
400-2, 400-5, 400-4 and 400-1
then it is easy to get 1600 – 12 = 1588
• By taking a slightly different view of the problem,
it may find an easier way to solve it
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Lotus blossom technique
• One starts with a central problem and expands it
into themes and sub-themes, each with separate
entry points
• The “petals” around the core of the lotus blossom
are figuratively "peeled back" one at a time,
revealing a key component or theme
• This approach is pursued in widening circles until
the problem is comprehensively explored
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6 steps of Lotus blossom technique
1. Draw up a lotus blossom diagram made up of a
square in the center of the diagram (the pistil)
and eight circles (petals) surrounding the
square
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Steps 2 - 3
2. Write the central idea or problem in the center of
the diagram (yellow square)
3. Look for solutions to the central problem. Then
write them in the flower petals (pink circles)
– The solutions should be as different from one
another as possible
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Step 4
4. Unfold the lotus blossom: Each idea written in
the circles becomes the central theme of a new
lotus blossom
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Steps 5 - 6
5. Follow step 3 with all newly created problems
– This should result in ideas which are further
removed from the original problem
6. Continue the process until all ideas have been
exhausted
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Epstain’s example
• Einstein was once asked what the difference was
between him and the average person
• He said that if you asked the average person to
find a needle in a haystack, the person would
stop when he/she found a needle
• He, on the other hand, would tear through the
entire haystack looking for all possible needles
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Darwin’s example
• When Charles Darwin first set to solve the
problem of evolution, he did not analytically settle
on the most promising approach to natural
selection and then process the information in a
way that would exclude all other approaches
• Instead, he initially organized his thinking around
8 significant themes of the problem, which gave
his thinking some order but with the themes
connected loosely enough so that he could easily
alter them
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Darwin’s example, cont.
• Multiple themes allowed him to reach out in
many alternative directions and to pull seemingly
unrelated information together
• Darwin expanded his thinking by inventing
alternative possibilities and explanations that,
otherwise, may have been ignored
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There are many other approaches
• For example, check the link
http://creatingminds.org/tools/tools_ideation.htm
for a long list of different creative thinking
techniques
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Task for training at home
• Brainstorm on the problem of your choice
– Remember to clearly formulate the probelm
• Use lotus blossom to explore your problem
comprehensively
– Don't censor yourself
– Try generate a large number of ideas = many
“petals”
– Continue unfolding the lotus blossom untill all
ideas are exhausted