6.9 Group Techniques for Increasing Creativity

6.9.1 Brainstorming

The best known and probably most widely used procedure to stimulate creativity is brainstorming. It was originated in 1938 by Alex F. Osborn in response to his dissatisfaction with the‑usual‑business conference. Osborn, as did so many other business executives, came to regard the usual business conference as a waste of time because, although the business meeting would be called to deal with one or more important problems, it usually did not yield anything of value. Therefore, Osborn developed brainstorming as a means of achieving "organized ideation” in group meetings held in his advertising company. These group meetings began to be called brainstorming sessions because" 'brainstorming' means using the brain to storm a problem.”

A) Theory

For Osborn "the creative problem‑solving process" consists of: (1) Fact finding, (2) Idea‑finding, and (3) Solution ‑finding.

Fact finding consists of two parts: problem definition and preparation. The former involves selecting and highlighting the problem while the latter involves assembling information related to the problem.

Idea finding involves producing ideas through idea generation and through the combination of and extrapolation from existing and available ideas.

The third phase of the creative problem‑solving process, solution finding, involves evaluating ideas and adopting one of them for further development and eventual use.

Osborn recommended brainstorming for the second, "idea finding," phase of the creative problem‑solving process. Brainstorming as we said is a method for coming up with ideas without regard to their evaluation. This does not mean that evaluation is disregarded forever but rather that it is only deferred. Osborn carefully separated evaluation from idea generation for fear that evaluation, if it came too early, might adversely affect the number and quality of ideas produced in attempting to solve a problem.

This orientation in the brainstorming procedure, as Osborn himself points out, has a long history. A technique very similar to brainstorming has been used by Hindu religious teachers for more than 400 years while working with religious groups. The Indian name for this method is Prai‑Barshana. Prai means 'outside you' and Barshana means 'question'. In such a session there is no discussion, or criticism. Evaluation of ideas takes place at later meetings of the same group.

It is apparent then that Osborn believed that an individual could deliberately set out to come up with ideas that would provide creative solutions to problems; and what held for an individual also held for groups of individuals. He therefore recommended brainstorming to help overcome the restrictive and rigidifying effects of evaluation that occurred in most business conferences. On the group level, therefore, Osborn saw a brainstorming session as "nothing more than a creative conference for the sole purpose of producing a checklist of ideas; ideas which can serve as leads to problem‑solution ideas which can subsequently be evaluated and further processed."

Efforts devoted to deliberately coming up with ideas for creative solutions could be facilitated by following two major principles and four major rules.

The two major principles are: deferment of judgment and quantity breeds quality. The four major rules are: (1) Criticism is ruled out; (2) freewheeling is welcomed; (3) quantity is wanted; and (4) combination and improvement are sought.