Page 140 - 100 Great Business Ideas: From Leading Companies Around the World (100 Great Ideas)

the responses of others, with time set aside for piggybacking
on those. Four Jamie, variations on brainstorming are
described later in this chapter: Lotus blossom technique (MY),
Mitsubishi method, NHK method, and TKJ method. These
techniques can be used in U.S. organizations without chang-
ing any of their components or with adjustments as the user
sees fit.

66/2. BRAINWRITING
Brainwriting is a form of non-oral brainstorming to which
the basic brainstorming rules apply. Participants, sitting in a
circle, write down their ideas for solving a given problem
and pass their papers to their neighbors in the circle, who
then brainstorm the ideas for a specified period, say five
minutes, and then pass the papers on to the next person. The
purpose here is to help you build on the ideas of others, to
improve them. Three exchanges are usually enough to pro-
duce a lot of good ideas. The leader can then read the ideas,
have them written on the board, and so on, direct the group
to repeat the brainstorming exercise if necessary. 14 The prin-
cipal advantage of brainwriting is that the leader is unlikely
to influence participants unduly. The main disadvantage is
the lack of spontaneity. I like to have the first person pre-
pare three columns for the 1st, 2nd and 3rd person's ideas so
that we can find out how the solution progressed from per-
son to person. The first set of ideas usually takes only about
two minutes and the later rounds take more time because
participants have to read the other peoples' ideas before add-
ing their own.

101
CREATIVE
PROBLEM
SOLVING
TECHNIQUES

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