{"id":11042,"date":"2025-05-27T18:34:00","date_gmt":"2025-05-27T11:34:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cstc.vn\/blogtsk\/how-to-run-better-brainstorms-or-why-to-scrap-them\/"},"modified":"2025-05-27T18:34:00","modified_gmt":"2025-05-27T11:34:00","slug":"how-to-run-better-brainstorms-or-why-to-scrap-them","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cstc.vn\/blogtsk\/how-to-run-better-brainstorms-or-why-to-scrap-them\/","title":{"rendered":"How to run better brainstorms (or why to scrap them)"},"content":{"rendered":"

This article is part of our meetings series, looking at different types of design meetings, and how they could be improved. You can find all the articles here<\/a>.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

When we first had the idea to focus on meetings, I wasn\u2019t going to write about brainstorms. It felt like something that was already well-covered in countless blogs, podcasts and videos \u2013 some great, some eminently forgettable.<\/p>\n

But creative meetings \u2013 whether you call them brainstorms or not \u2013 are a key part of the industry. Whether they happen with a client or within the team, floating, testing and sharpening ideas needs to happen in some format.<\/p>\n

And it turns out it\u2019s something a tonne of designers have very strong opinions on. And so here are five creatives with five different ideas about brainstorming better\u2026<\/p>\n

Brian Collins \u2013 Just say no<\/h5>\n

Brainstorming is what happens when people who have never had an idea try to simulate the appearance of having one. It\u2019s a s\u00e9ance for the unimaginative, complete with bad office snacks.<\/p>\n

No-one I know with real talent has ever, ever, ever requested a brainstorming session. Why? They already have ideas. Too many.<\/p>\n

No, no, no. Talented people do not brainstorm. Talented people brood. They sulk. They take long walks and think. They lie awake at night with a crushing sense of impending failure and wake up with ten better ideas than yours.<\/p>\n

And they show you. And you build on them.\u2028What they do not do is gather around a sad whiteboard as if divine inspiration is lurking in the fluorescent lighting.<\/p>\n

A brainstorm session is a padded cell for corporate dullards who want the thrill of \u201ccreativity\u201d without the burden of actually being creative. These people don\u2019t want ideas \u2013 they want to be seen near ideas, like tourists posing in front of ruins they\u2019re helping to destroy.<\/p>\n

The room is always the same: a preening, dead-eyed facilitator and 12 poorly dressed people with Sharpies hoping someone else will say something first so they don\u2019t have to.<\/p>\n

What follows is an avalanche of inoffensive garbage: slogans that sound like rejected insurance commercials, metaphors involving bridges and climbing and journeys and belonging, and the inevitable appearance of someone who says, \u201cLet\u2019s circle back!\u201d or \u201cLet\u2019s all re-group!\u201d with the conviction of a war criminal.<\/p>\n

Brainstorming doesn\u2019t generate ideas \u2013 it produces landfill. It\u2019s the intellectual equivalent of dumping out everyone\u2019s junk drawers and pretending it\u2019s the Mus\u00e9e d\u2019Orsay.<\/p>\n

Brainstorming is cowardice disguised as collaboration. No-one risks anything, no-one thinks deeply, and no-one ever leaves with an idea worth remembering.<\/p>\n

But everyone claps. They clap for the blandest suggestion. They clap for showing up. They clap because clapping is easier than saying, \u201cThis was a fucking waste of time and I now wish I\u2019d lied about having to be out of town.\u201d<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s not too late.\u2028Because you now realise this is where your ambition, imagination and hope will surely die, strangled by consensus, Post-It notes, cold coffee, and people who still use the word \u201cideate.\u201d\u2028Run. While you can.<\/p>\n

Brian Collins is founder and chief creative office of Collins<\/a>, and president of the ADC.<\/em><\/p>\n

Joel Stein \u2013 Think about the set and the setting<\/h5>\n

I think if you say the word brainstorms, a lot of people just have an immediate allergic reaction to it. I\u2019ve been in enough bad ones to understand why that is.<\/p>\n

Brainstorms are disastrous for all sorts of reasons. They are not good for introverts. The most senior people naturally dominate the session. But there\u2019s also not really time and space for people to think even a few steps beyond the most obvious things that come into their heads.<\/p>\n

Everyone feels the pressure to say something that\u2019s not completely stupid, so people default to saying stuff that isn\u2019t going to get them laughed out of the room.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not saying brainstorms never yield anything decent or interesting. But they certainly put a lot of barriers in the way to getting good results.<\/p>\n

Facilitation as a skill just doesn\u2019t get talked about that much. It\u2019s not really understood or respected.<\/p>\n

If I ever ran an agency, I\u2019d probably have a chief facilitator role. Not just someone who is quite senior, or happy to stand in front of a room, but someone that\u2019s actually in the weeds of group dynamics and understands techniques to help people think more effectively as a group.<\/p>\n

The space matters a lot. Not just where it is, but how it\u2019s decorated and organised. You can\u2019t expect people to go into a really grey boardroom, with traffic beeping in the background, and for everyone to be able to think brilliant thoughts.<\/p>\n

With my new programme Ideas On Acid,<\/a> I am thinking about creativity using the model of a healthy and therapeutic psychedelic trip. The key concepts with that are set and setting.<\/p>\n

The mindset that you bring to the experience is going to massively shape the experience you have with these very powerful substances. And so is where you do it \u2013 you\u2019ll have a very different time in the woods as opposed to in a dingy basement.<\/p>\n

Leaders need to think about the atmosphere as much as the plan, or the exercises. The vibe is almost always the most important thing.<\/p>\n

Joel Stein<\/a> is a copywriter and creative consultant.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Cat How \u2013 Booze unlocks brilliance<\/h5>\n

My creative director Chris Clayton agree on the fact that we come up with our best schemes, ideas, and breakthroughs in the pub together.<\/p>\n

We make sure to have at least one session at the Barley Mow in Shoreditch whenever I\u2019m back in London from LA. The magic happens normally after about eight pints of Timothy Taylor for him, and the equivalent in glasses of ros\u00e9 for me.<\/p>\n

I think it just makes you think bigger, braver, more silly, and you just say, why not? I always like to parrot an Ernest Hemingway quote \u2013 \u201cAlways do sober what you said you\u2019d do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut.\u201d<\/p>\n

But I forget the second line, as I\u2019m not one to keep my mouth shut. And I lead with the first and apply that to the ideas me, Chris, and my co-founder Rog have when we\u2019re in the boozer getting merry.<\/p>\n

Sometimes they\u2019re off-hand reflections about the studio, and we decide to change things up a bit, Or perhaps there\u2019s an idea for a piece of work or a client we\u2019d like to collaborate with \u2013 and we think a little more around the box on that.<\/p>\n

I have to remind myself to add these all to my Apple Notes while staggering back onto the Tube, as often a lot of this gold is lost the next morning.<\/p>\n

When it comes to within the studio, we encourage a bottle of beer in a brainstorming session or in meetings towards the end of the day. Our 1-2-1s too, we ask if folks want to go to, er, the Barley Mow again to have a chat. We find people open up more about their thoughts, dreams and aspirations.<\/p>\n

Cat How is co-founder of How&How<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Ben Mottershead \u2013 Play puts everyone on a level<\/h5>\n

I think what happens in most creative meetings is that the loudest voice takes over, and you become reliant on that loud voice being right on every occasion.<\/p>\n

I have found the most creative people tend to be active listeners, and so a little quieter.<\/p>\n

We like to gamify these sorts of meetings. Getting out plasticine, or LEGO, and asking people to create something makes brainstorming more of a collaboration. If this brand had a mascot, what would it look like? What would change in this person\u2019s life if they got really drunk at the pub?<\/p>\n

It\u2019s true that not everyone gets it straight away. There are definitely people who start off slouched back with their arms crossed; a very defensive posture. But I\u2019m a big believer that everyone\u2019s a kid at heart, and after a while, everyone gets really into it. It\u2019s about giving people that freedom to play, and that permission.<\/p>\n

These things spark very different conversations, and, crucially, you don\u2019t have to be good at speaking to contribute. You put everyone on an equal footing, whether they are a seasoned strategist or a junior who\u2019s brand new to the industry.<\/p>\n

Seniority is a problem. I have met some fucking useless ECDs \u2013 people who\u2019ve stayed at the same place for a long time and have learned how to play the politics.<\/p>\n

But we\u2019ve had juniors \u2013 and interns \u2013 who have a much more interesting approach to design because they haven\u2019t yet been moulded by the commercialism that comes with working in the industry.<\/p>\n

Ben Mottershead is founder and creative director of Never Dull Studio<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Matt Ballantine \u2013 Embrace the power of random<\/h5>\n

About ten years ago, I became interested in the use of play. Especially working in quite serious sectors, I noticed that an absence of people feeling playful often seems to correlate with an inability to come up with anything other than how they\u2019ve always done things.<\/p>\n

I think a lot of it then comes down to our preconceptions of what creativity is. I think people in the creative industries are a lot less creative than they\u2019d like to make out. And people outside of the field think that\u2019s something that other people do.<\/p>\n

I work a lot in software consulting, where people want to be professional. And to be professional means to be really fucking boring. It\u2019s like the Protestant work ethic \u2013 you can\u2019t possibly be working hard if it\u2019s enjoyable.<\/p>\n

I discovered that randomisation could be a really interesting way to break patterns of thinking.<\/p>\n

One of the analyses of the world around us is that it\u2019s essentially just a series of random events that are going on at varying levels of predictability. If it\u2019s a toss of a coin, it\u2019s very predictable. If I put money on the stock market, it\u2019s completely unpredictable.<\/p>\n

I came across apophenia, which is the ability to spot patterns within random information.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a very human thing. During lockdown, I started a project where I posted a picture of my cup of coffee every day, and asked people what they saw. An AI would tell you that it was coffee, or maybe a cup. People tell you that it looks like a leopard chasing an elephant.<\/p>\n

Sometimes I use random photographs as a spur to help people come up with new ideas. We also built something called The Creativator. People put ideas on cards, and these get put into this thing that looks like a fruit machine. It\u2019s designed to see what happens when random ideas get put together.<\/p>\n

In the last few years I invented our tarot deck. Not because I believe in tarot, but because it\u2019s a randomisation thing.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s stuff people will know from traditional tarot decks, like Death, but also character cards like the Business Planner, or the Sales Person. What would disaster look like for this person?<\/p>\n

The idea is to build empathy, and break people out of conventional ways of thinking. I\u00a0designed these purposefully to be this weird artefact that doesn\u2019t feel like it belongs in the business world.<\/p>\n

Matt Ballantine<\/a> is a sociologist and engagement manager at Equal Experts<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

\nWhat to read next: <\/strong>How to run better annual studio meetings<\/a> | How to run better meetings<\/a> | How to run better pitches<\/a> | \u201cWe need to talk about meetings\u2026\u201d<\/a>\n<\/div>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This article is part of our meetings series, looking at different types of design meetings, and how they could be improved. You can find all the articles here.\u00a0 When we first had the idea to … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[145],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nHow to run better brainstorms (or why to scrap them) - Blog TSK<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/cstc.vn\/blogtsk\/how-to-run-better-brainstorms-or-why-to-scrap-them\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"How to run better brainstorms (or why to scrap them) - Blog TSK\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"This article is part of our meetings series, looking at different types of design meetings, and how they could be improved. You can find all the articles here.\u00a0 When we first had the idea to …\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/cstc.vn\/blogtsk\/how-to-run-better-brainstorms-or-why-to-scrap-them\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Blog TSK\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-05-27T11:34:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"10 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cstc.vn\/blogtsk\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/cstc.vn\/blogtsk\/\",\"name\":\"Blog TSK\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/cstc.vn\/blogtsk\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cstc.vn\/blogtsk\/how-to-run-better-brainstorms-or-why-to-scrap-them\/#webpage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/cstc.vn\/blogtsk\/how-to-run-better-brainstorms-or-why-to-scrap-them\/\",\"name\":\"How to run better brainstorms (or why to scrap them) - Blog TSK\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cstc.vn\/blogtsk\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2025-05-27T11:34:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-05-27T11:34:00+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cstc.vn\/blogtsk\/how-to-run-better-brainstorms-or-why-to-scrap-them\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/cstc.vn\/blogtsk\/how-to-run-better-brainstorms-or-why-to-scrap-them\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cstc.vn\/blogtsk\/how-to-run-better-brainstorms-or-why-to-scrap-them\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/cstc.vn\/blogtsk\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"How to run better brainstorms (or why to scrap them)\"}]}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"How to run better brainstorms (or why to scrap them) - Blog TSK","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/cstc.vn\/blogtsk\/how-to-run-better-brainstorms-or-why-to-scrap-them\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"How to run better brainstorms (or why to scrap them) - Blog TSK","og_description":"This article is part of our meetings series, looking at different types of design meetings, and how they could be improved. You can find all the articles here.\u00a0 When we first had the idea to …","og_url":"https:\/\/cstc.vn\/blogtsk\/how-to-run-better-brainstorms-or-why-to-scrap-them\/","og_site_name":"Blog TSK","article_published_time":"2025-05-27T11:34:00+00:00","twitter_misc":{"Est. reading time":"10 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/cstc.vn\/blogtsk\/#website","url":"https:\/\/cstc.vn\/blogtsk\/","name":"Blog TSK","description":"","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/cstc.vn\/blogtsk\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/cstc.vn\/blogtsk\/how-to-run-better-brainstorms-or-why-to-scrap-them\/#webpage","url":"https:\/\/cstc.vn\/blogtsk\/how-to-run-better-brainstorms-or-why-to-scrap-them\/","name":"How to run better brainstorms (or why to scrap them) - Blog TSK","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/cstc.vn\/blogtsk\/#website"},"datePublished":"2025-05-27T11:34:00+00:00","dateModified":"2025-05-27T11:34:00+00:00","author":{"@id":""},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/cstc.vn\/blogtsk\/how-to-run-better-brainstorms-or-why-to-scrap-them\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/cstc.vn\/blogtsk\/how-to-run-better-brainstorms-or-why-to-scrap-them\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/cstc.vn\/blogtsk\/how-to-run-better-brainstorms-or-why-to-scrap-them\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/cstc.vn\/blogtsk\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"How to run better brainstorms (or why to scrap them)"}]}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cstc.vn\/blogtsk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11042"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cstc.vn\/blogtsk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cstc.vn\/blogtsk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cstc.vn\/blogtsk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11042"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cstc.vn\/blogtsk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11042\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cstc.vn\/blogtsk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11042"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cstc.vn\/blogtsk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11042"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cstc.vn\/blogtsk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11042"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}