Brainstorming techniques

Nine ways to generate more and better ideas, from solo mind mapping to structured group methods, plus a SCAMPER tool you can use right now on your own problem.

  1. Mind mappingPut the problem in the centre and branch out as fast as you can. The visual layout shows where ideas cluster and where there are gaps. Best solo, before a group session.
  2. Brainwriting (6-3-5)Six people each write three ideas in five minutes, then pass their sheet on and build on the last person’s ideas. Six rounds give up to 108 ideas in half an hour, and quiet people get heard.
  3. SCAMPERSeven prompts (substitute, combine, adapt, modify, put to other use, eliminate, reverse) that force you to look at an existing thing from new angles. Try it below.
  4. StarburstingInstead of answers, generate questions: who, what, when, where, why and how. Draw them as six branches of a star. Great for stress-testing a plan before you commit.
  5. Reverse brainstormingAsk “how could we make this worse?” then flip every answer. People find problems easier to spot than solutions.
  6. Rapid ideationSet a timer for five or ten minutes and write every idea, no editing. Quantity first; Osborn’s rule was to defer judgement.
  7. Round robinIn a group, everyone contributes one idea in turn, with no discussion until the round ends. Stops the loudest voice dominating.
  8. Figure stormingAsk how someone specific would tackle it: a rival company, a child, a famous inventor. A borrowed perspective breaks habits.
  9. The 5 WhysAsk “why?” five times to dig from a symptom to a root cause. Developed at Toyota; each answer becomes the next branch down.

Try SCAMPER on your idea

Seven prompts, one at a time. Jot answers, then turn them into an editable mind map.

Substitute

What could you swap in a school lunch menu: a material, a person, a step, a place?

0 of 7 prompts answered.

Rules that make any technique work

  • Separate generating from judging. Collect first, criticise later. Osborn’s core rule, and still the most broken.
  • Go for quantity. The good ideas usually show up after the obvious ones are out of the way.
  • Think alone, then together. Individual idea generation before a group discussion beats talking from the start.
  • Capture visually. A mind map lets you drop each idea next to its relatives, so patterns appear while you work. Stuck? The editor’s Suggest ideas button, or the AI generator, can prime the pump.

Questions people ask

What are the best brainstorming techniques?

It depends on the problem. Mind mapping and brainwriting are good all-rounders; SCAMPER helps improve something that already exists; starbursting (who, what, when, where, why, how) finds gaps in a plan; reverse brainstorming exposes risks.

Who invented brainstorming?

Advertising executive Alex Osborn popularised group brainstorming in the 1940s and 1950s, notably in his 1953 book Applied Imagination. He also proposed the checklist of questions that Bob Eberle later arranged into the SCAMPER acronym.

Does group brainstorming actually work?

Research since the 1950s (for example Diehl and Stroebe, 1987) found that people brainstorming alone and then pooling ideas usually produce more ideas than the same people talking in a group, partly because in a group only one person can speak at a time. That’s why brainwriting and solo mind mapping before a meeting work so well.

What is a brainstorming tool?

Anything that helps you capture ideas quickly without judging them. A mind map maker is ideal because you can add ideas as fast as you think of them and organise them afterwards.