Brainstorming

Brainstorming is a process of group creativity by which we try to find a solution or an answer to a specific problem, collecting a list of ideas provided spontaneously and without inhibitions by the participants.

The procedure dates back to and is similar to the "Quaestiones disputatae", exercises carried out in medieval schools where a question or a reflection was articulated in such a way as to stimulate discussion among the students.

The term Brainstorming became popular thanks to Alex Faickney Osborn and his 1967 book Applied Imagination.

With the term Brainstorming new ideas are generated using techniques that facilitate creativity. The techniques used during the brainstorming phase stimulate the participants to express their ideas freely, interacting with those of others.

Brainstorming is in fact a technique used to encourage the manifestation of individual imagination on the one hand, and the interaction and synergy between the thoughts and intuitions of all participants on the other.

To achieve this double objective, it is necessary to appropriately regulate the overall activity by defining the topic or "problem" to be treated for which an answer or solution is sought.

The interventions do not express judgments or censures towards other interventions. Any interventions that do not adhere to the theme will be examined only at the end of the activity, during the overall evaluation of the work.

Brainstorming works by focusing on a problem, and then letting as many original solutions emerge freely, without any pre-established order, pushing them as far as possible.

Brainstorming is a term commonly used in the English language, which has become internationally used, a word that indicates creative, unrelated thinking.

The foundation of brainstorming is therefore the generation of ideas, individually or in a group, avoiding to give an immediate judgment. Scientific research has shown that this principle is highly productive in both individual effort and teamwork.

In particular, in group brainstorming, the comments of the participants stimulate everyone's ideas, in a sort of chain reaction of the creation of ideas.