Managing brainstorms for breadth and depth
Some thoughts on brainstorms and other generation activities
Published July 9, 2021
Think about like the last two workshops you attended. They probably started with a brainstorm. This makes sense. Each of the workshop’s other activities require fuel for their engines. You need inputs, and if you don’t walk in with inputs, then you have to generate them.
As facilitators, we use a class of activities that are generation activities, and generation activities share a set of best practices for facilitation, regardless of what you generate. A brainstorm is a type of generation activity.
We guide generation activities with type and frame
A generation activity has two attributes: type and frame.
Usually, you generate a type of thing. For example, you might brainstorm a list of restaurants or a list of bands. In both cases, you can end up with long, unvariegated lists of things. Thanks for the list of restaurants, but what does this list mean?
This evening, I asked my daughter to tell me something she liked. I specified no type around what to generate. It could be something, any thing. Yet, I did provide a frame. I asked for something she liked. In this case, I ended up with lists of different types of things: TV shows, musicians, songs, food, stuffed animals, places, etc. It was a list of different types of things, but I knew she liked all of them. By asking for things she liked, I gave her a frame she could use to parse and differentiate all the things she knows.
Play this game at home. Brainstorm a list of restaurants, as many as you can. Now, brainstorm a list of restaurants you like. Or restaurants that serve sphaghetti. Restaurants you’ve never been to. Restaurants you want to go to. Each frame generates a different list even tough each list collects the same types of things.
Type tells participants what kinds of things you want. Frame tells them how to parse and distinguish that world of things. Generation activities don’t need frames, and they don’t require types. But it generates better chinks of stuff to work with.
Broad types generate breadth
In workshops or with design thinking, when you first explore a space, you first generate with a broad frame without restricting to a type. Like spinning in a circle and shouting out landmarks you see. You’re not sure what’s useful or interesting. You might list restaurants, department stores, boutiques, grocery stores, auto repair shops, dry cleaners, telephone poles, roads, people, cars, whatever. You’re just sensing what’s there. You’ll figure out what’s worth exploring later.
This generates a breadth of inputs to work with.
To constrain inputs, make type more and more specific. Brainstorm a list of restaurants, a list of Italian restaurants, a list of Italian restaurants on the North side of town, a list of Italian restaurants on the North side of town where you’ve eaten, etc.
Narrower types constrain and narrow the breadth of items you’re working with.
Frames generate depth
When you’re more certain about a space and need more depth, when you want to act on a quality of the things, restrict the lists of things by using a frame. What restaurants do you like? What restaurants do you dislike? Although a frame may seem to provide further constraints on the list of items you generated, it often provides a new perspective that allows you to generate a new range of inputs that creates a greater depth of understanding about the space.
What if you liked the food and disliked the service? Liked the decor but disliked the location? The frame allows you to reconsider and recalibrate what you know about a space, so that you know and understand more about that space.
Use type and frame to control breadth and depth
In generation activities, adjust the frame and the type to influence breadth and depth. The more general the type, the greater breadth. The more specific the frame, the greater the depth.
Keep type and frame in mind when you design a workshop recipe and want to make sure you generate the right kinds of things for inputs to other activities. Second, when you want to generate the appropriate amount of inputs for other activities, tweak type and frame to get the right amount of inputs you need to fuel the rest of the workshop.
Anyway…
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Photo by Camille Villanueva via Unsplash.
