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Brain writing
(6-3-5)
A creativity tool aimed to
address the potential deficiencies of brainstorming (uneven
participation and verbally led) by encouraging participation from
all, with an emphasis on sketching of ideas.
Description
Focuses on sketching as a medium for creating concepts, with some
limited use of key-words and short descriptions to augment the
sketching. The overall process is similar to brainstorming, but
rather than begin with an open discussion, the session starts
with each individual writing down their thoughts first.
Brainwriting is a general term, used to describe a number of
similar methods, and the approach described here is also known as
the 6-3-5 method (6 people, 3 ideas each, 5 times around the
table). Like brainstorming, some simple rules should apply (see
illustration).
Method
Establish team
A good size team for brainwriting is between 3 to 8
people - 6 is about right, hence the '6' in the name of
the tool.
Define scope and purpose
As with brainstorming, the process will be more effective
with a clear focus.
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each
Each team members writes, describes or sketches 3 ideas
each on a piece of paper. It is highly recommended that
at this stage, the participants should be encouraged to
sketch their ideas, an annotate the sketches with writing
where appropriate. It may help the team members to focus
on the top 5 elements of product functionality, as viewed
as important by customers. This stage should last around
30 minutes (longer if people are still going strong,
shorter if ideas have dried up) and in that time, a team
of 6 people should have produced between 15 to 30 unique
concepts.
Pass the concepts around the table -
1 round
Following the initial session, the concepts are passed to
the right, to the next person around the table. Allow
10-15 minutes for each person to add to, modify and
extend each of the ideas passed to them. Once they have
done this, the sheets are passed on until all ideas have
been seen and modified by all team members. This can take
in total about 60 minutes. The focus of any modifications
to ideas should be on advancing the idea, not
criticising.
Repeat 5 times
It is recommended that they are passed around the table
in total 5 times, to encourage combination of ideas,
refinement and development of concepts. This can be
laborious, and the rounds should be spaced out in time to
prevent the team becoming stale. After a few rounds, it
can be beneficial to use traditional brainstorming rules,
to encourage some debate and discussion about the ideas,
with a view to advancing the concepts more quickly and
potentially eliminating the weakest ones.
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