The Innovator's Toolkit: 50+ Techniques for Predictable and Sustainable Organic Growth, 2nd Edition

Technique 20

Brainwriting 6-3-5

Encourage equal opportunity ideation.

 

Brainwriting 6-3-5 is a modified form of classic brainstorming that encourages equal participation from all team members using written rather than verbal idea generation. For instance, if half of your team wants to launch a new product line and the other half is resistant, brainwriting 6-3-5 would give team members a chance to express their ideas without commentary or criticism.

This technique is particularly helpful when the group is in danger of domination by certain participants, or when team members may hold back because of the group makeup. However, if you're looking for more outside-the-box ideas, other ideation techniques may be more powerful, such as Provocation and Movement (Technique 24) or Creative Challenge (Technique 17).

The name brainwriting 6-3-5 comes from the practice of six people writing down three ideas in five minutes. In reality, the tool works fine with a slightly larger or smaller number of people.

Steps

Scenario: Say you have a website where customers can register for your company's online training courses. One problem you've noted is that 35 percent of the people who begin the registration process fail to complete it before leaving the site. Your team can use brainwriting 6-3-5 to list possible reasons for this behavior and discover ideas to alleviate it.

1. Choose Participants

If you have more than eight people, split them into equally divided groups. If you have less than four ...