How to run a brainstorming meeting (29 Jul 2004)

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How to run a brainstorming meeting (29 Jul 2004)
The bad reason that brainstorming is popular is that it is a convenient way for bad managers to pretend that the team is involved in the direction of the project. A team leader can convince themselves that they know how to cultivate and work with ideas that are not their own simply by holding a meeting. Most of the time it’s just ignorance: they don’t know any better, and only have all of their own bad brainstorming experiences (with their own previous history of bad managers) to borrow from. In this "non-evil semi-incompetent" case, the manager typically holds a stiff and awkward meeting, some stuff is written down, a few smiles are exchanged, and then: nothing happens. The manager returns to his office with a big stack of notes, puts the stack next to his other stacks of things he’s not sure what to do with, and the notes are never seen or used again. He might try to return to the notes once or twice, but can’t figure out a way to convert it into something useful, so it gets postponed and postponed until the ideas aren’t ripe anymore. Life goes on. Project decisions are made much as they would be otherwise. In the truly evil case (which is rare) of the manager deliberately manipulating his team and the entire exercise of brainstorming is deliberately done for show: a calculated act to deny any complaints of lack of involvement from people on the team.

Article URL: http://www.uiweb.com/issues/issue34.htm

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