Sorting Ideas by MarketoonistDon’t you just love it when you spend a meeting coming up with ideas, and then NONE of them go anywhere?

Brainstorming is seriously over-rated — when you do it wrong, which is most of the time!

Beth Kanter shares her tips here on how to do brainstorming right.

As Beth points out, asking the right question or framing the problem that you are brainstorming about is essential to your success. So is separating the idea generation phase from the idea evaluation phase.

Rather than launch into why each idea won’t work, go through a more deliberate evaluation process, like the Six Thinking Hats approach Beth recommends.

Here are a few more articles on brainstorming at nonprofits that might help you shift useless brainstorming into something more useful:

Getting the Best Results from Brainstorming

10 Rules for a Brilliant Brainstorm

Brainstorming Sucks: Try Some Different Ways to Create Ideas

Don’t go into another brainstorming meeting without this advice!