Frequently, business owners find themselves so caught up in the day to day running of their businesses that they forget about the importance of planning – many business owners just want to get out there and get on with it, says Frank Reinelt, senior director for Northern Europe & Emerging Markets at Mindjet.
It is easy for any business leader to fall into this trap, but it is especially true for the small business owner who is time poor and lacking the extra resources to take time out to plan effectively, and review and refresh new business ideas. While it is important to execute on ideas, we often forget that “if you fail to plan, you plan to fail”.
There is a very simple tool available to enable businesses to plan properly and it has been around for decades – good, old-fashioned brainstorming. It can be a great energiser for your business, regardless of size, adding new energy and unearthing new ideas for growth and direction.
But these powerful and transforming ideas, if not captured and acted upon, may soon get lost in amongst those everyday business tasks. So how can you breathe new life into tried and tested brainstorming?
Brainstorming and capturing great ideas
Rethinking the way you and your team brainstorm together can drive productivity and creativity. Whatever you are planning, it is important to understand that having the right tools at the beginning of the planning cycle, to capture your ideas, guide your strategy and execute the next steps, can save time and deliver results.
Engaging staff in the process is crucial to galvanising energy and turning ideas into action, as is using more than just a white board and marker.
Imagine you are leading a brainstorming session at your company. You want to come up with growth strategies, so you gather your team in a meeting room, generate lots of ideas and choose the most promising one. Many small business owners use this approach to brainstorming, but unfortunately, it does not often work. In fact, it can make your team less creative.
“Group problem solving can be extremely effective, but only if it’s done right,” says Art Markman, cognitive psychologist and author of Smart Thinking. “The usual method is disastrous.”
The traditional approach, where the group generates ideas together, does not often work effectively because group members influence each other’s suggestions. Your brain solves a problem by retrieving relevant memories that might lead to a novel solution. When someone else suggests an idea, your mind limits itself to related memories, eliminating ideas you might have considered and impeding the creative process.
An effective group brainstorm circumvents that trap. It includes a four-step process that promotes creativity and independent thought:
* Think independently – first, ask each person to generate his or her own ideas before the group comes together. “Individuals working alone will explore a broader range of ideas,” Markman explains. They will then each have a better chance of bringing their best work to the table.
* Share all ideas – next, ask each person to submit his or her best ideas, then compile them in one place. Most people relate better to visual ideas and cues than ideas written down in an e-mail. Download a mind mapping app, where the ideas can be recorded and later disseminated, then send the mind map to the group.
“That way, everyone is exposed to a wide range of ideas,” Markman says. Suggestions that might have been overlooked in a meeting will have a chance to be seen.
* Review separately. Before you meet in a group, ask each person to take notes on the other ideas. Have them look for the potential advantages of each idea or solutions to potential problems. These ideas and solutions can later be added to the mind map.
“Early on, you don’t want people criticising too much,” Markman points out. “If you start by being critical, you end up closing off every idea that looks new.”
* Discuss together. Now it is time to bring the group in for the brainstorm. Ask each person to suggest ideas that seem the most promising, then debate the pros and cons, which again can be added to the visual mind map.
Because each person reviewed the ideas independently, you will have a more fruitful discussion. “If one person thinks they see a flaw in the idea, then someone else can be an advocate for it,” says Markman.
When you do settle on a solution, the group will be more likely to support the outcome. “It’s easier to get group buy-in if everyone feels that they were part of the process,” Markman concludes.
With mind mapping software, ideas are captured as you collaborate, meaning that you don’t have to waste time on taking meeting minutes, allocating responsibility or deadlines for tasks and distributing the information to the right people – it is already on the page and can be easily disseminated to your team.
Doing this properly during the meeting will mean that your staff walk out feeling that they are already closely linked with the process, involved in the ideas and naturally engaged and inspired to move forward to reach these new goals.
Taking ideas into action
In the weeks following a brainstorming session, it is easy to let the action plan gather dust as we get caught up in new tasks and meeting deadlines.
Using new tools and technology to capture the ideas, means you can attach electronic reminders to certain tasks, adding links with additional information and further collaboration, and the ability to add new ideas to your existing planning document later on will all contribute to keep the ideas alive.
By using technology and apps to drive your ideas into action, weeks later you will be on top of the next steps you originally set out to achieve. Plus the whole team will be able to see updates in real-time and have the ability to be more agile, adapting to changes as they appear.
It is also imperative that you get to know the functionality of the tools available. Playing around with the functionality of the tool is a crucial part in streamlining the brainstorming and ideas process – knowing that you can assign tasks and monitor their progress at the click of a button, conduct a Google search for venues within the app, or even prioritise options will mean that you will continually plan with greater ease and in more detail.
For a small business, using new technology tools and simple strategies will ensure your business goals and plans are manageable, actionable and achievable.
The benefits to your business will include detailed project and business roadmaps; stronger employee engagement, higher productivity and improved levels of creativity – allowing you to balance the day to day running of the business, alongside continued planning for the future.
