There are several practical steps that experience strategy consultant at Costrategrity, Vianna Mitzy, use to ensure that your brainstorming sessions are fruitful, efficient and short, as well as satisfying to their participants.
First, you need to be prepared. Do your homework. It is really crucial to have some preparation done beforehand. So many brainstorming sessions fail because nobody came prepared and convulsively try to generate ideas without any analytics or any data. Hence, somebody has to create at least two or three slides with a basic understanding of the question in advance. It is not that important to create significantly more slides. Concentrate on the key concepts and ideas.
Second, it is important to have the main question of the session posted or stipulated beforehand. All the participants should be aware of the question or topic to be discussed.
Third, really try to moderate the session. It is of great importance that the moderator stops are the more prolix people in the room and, at the same time, allows others to speak. Sometimes this should be done on purpose so that everybody has his or her thoughts and ideas heard.
Fourth, you need to have a transcript at the end of the session. Have hand notes or record your sessions. In either way, you need to send the results of the session to all the participants. Encourage them to read and correct it if needed.
Finally, the best way to go is to have a second session in a week or two weeks’ time. Normally, brainstorming sessions are used to generate ideas and the first session is in essence specifically for that. Generate as many ideas as possible. The second session is for choosing the best ideas that are of practical value and are accepted for further detailed analysis. In order to have the second session also be more efficient use some concept or a practical tool in order to decide on what ideas are to be chosen in your case.
Concluding, the key hints for a great brainstorming session are being prepared, distributing the topic beforehand, actively moderating, having a transcript, carrying out a separate session on the best ideas choice.