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Tuesday, January 14, 2014

Brainstorming

In the last byte, we began our discussion on various techniques of decision making. In today's byte, we look at the technique of brainstorming.

Brainstorming is a good technique for generating alternative. Brainstorming is a technique for generating as many ideas as possible on a given subject, while suspending evaluation until all the ideas have been suggested. Participants are encouraged to build on the suggestions of other members in the group than criticize it.

It is always possible that the participants engage in discussion amongst themselves that cam make them loose focus and this in some ways reduces the efficiency of group brainstorming.

Verbal brainstorming is a traditional way of brainstorming and a recent trend is that of electronic decision making. The electronic brainstorming which uses an anonymous inputs overcomes two common problems that can produce group brainstorming failure:
  1. Production Blocking
  2. Evaluation Apprehension
Production blocking happens as individuals are exposed to the inputs of others as these individuals are distracted by other's inputs. The fear that others might respond negatively to their idea is captured by evaluation apprehension.

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