Brainstorming
sessions are all the rage. But they can be exercises in futility unless you
find a way to put the good ideas to work. Just as there is nothing to be gained
by irrelevant training that has no real application to the workplace (no
transfer of training), there is nothing to be gained by the generation of ideas
that go nowhere.
Follow
these 4 tips to ensure your idea-generating meetings result in real business process improvement.
- Choose a topic for the session. Do not leave it open-ended. Decide to focus on “customer satisfaction,” for instance, rather than on “improving the way we do business.”
- Ask meeting attendees to be prepared with 2 or 3 solid ideas on how to ensure happy customers and tell them that they should be ready to present their ideas in front of the group (so they won’t dare neglect their homework.)
- Gather all the ideas and put them on a story board for the entire team to review and assess together.
- Choose the 1 or 2 best ideas and put them to work as soon as possible.
