Brainstorming
What is brainstorming?
Brainstorming is the activity of generating multiple solution ideas as a group to address a specific target opportunity. Research shows that when teams generate more ideas, they generate better ideas. The value of brainstorming is to push past the first obvious ideas, to get creative juices flowing, and to reach truly innovative solutions.
Product trios brainstorm together as part of their collaborative discovery work—interviewing customers together, mapping opportunities together, choosing a target opportunity together, and generating solutions together.
What are the challenges with traditional brainstorming?
Traditional brainstorming has several well-documented problems:
- Social loafing: People tend not to work as hard in a group setting
- Conformity: People are afraid to stand out with ideas that are too distinct from the rest of the group
- Production blocking: We get distracted by what other people are saying
- Downward norm setting: Teams tend to perform at the level of their weakest member
But there are still benefits to generating ideas in a group setting—particularly capturing the full diversity of your team's perspectives. The question is how to overcome the challenges.
How can teams brainstorm more effectively?
The most important advice: start by generating ideas individually first. Research shows that individuals working alone generate more, diverse, and unique ideas than the same people working together as a group. This is because group brainstorming suffers from social loafing, conformity, production blocking, and downward norm setting.
After individual idea generation, bring the team together to share and build on those ideas. This approach captures the benefit of diverse perspectives while avoiding the pitfalls of traditional group brainstorming.
Beyond this foundational practice, limit idea generation to your target opportunity. When teams brainstorm across the whole opportunity solution tree, they generate a lot of first ideas, not innovative ones. Separate idea generation from idea evaluation—focus on quantity over quality first. And postpone feasibility concerns until after you've generated and shared ideas.
Learn more:
- Stop Brainstorming and Generate Better Ideas
Related terms:
- Ideating
- Target Opportunity
- Solutions
- Product Trio
Last Updated: October 25, 2025