Here at Now Go Create we love discovering and sharing tools and techniques to make ours (and your) creative work easier. If you haven’t tried it yet, brainwriting is a great tool.
We discovered brainwriting several years ago and it’s one we teach in our How To Become A Creative Ninja workshops. The principle behind it is that idea generation should exist separate from discussion because otherwise ideas can be influenced by others, individuals can dominate and biases can come into play.
So people write down their ideas either in advance or at the start of the workshop or brainstorm in Post Its – or using an app like Candor – to avoid one or two individuals dominating the conversation. Studies have found that in most meetings with traditional brainstorming, a few people do 60-75% of the talking. With brainwriting, everyone gets a chance to contribute.
Professor Leigh Thompson, a management professor at the Kellogg School, talks about how to overcome dominant people and use the tool in this short film here.
If you’re interested in developing your creative skills we teach these and many more on our How To Become A Creative Ninja workshops – in-house and open courses in Central London.