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Are you an effective brainstormer? Does the process of brainstorming feel like an opportunity or more like a chore? Chances are if you don't enjoy the process of brainstorming, you've probably been using the wrong brainstorming technique.

That's right-there are distinct brainstorming methods.

Just as there are different learning styles and different workflow preferences, each of us has a method of brainstorming that works best for us. Whether or not you're a veteran brainstormer, this article will help you unpack different brainstorming tools, learn the advantages and shortcomings of each, and select a technique for yourself and your team.

12 popular brainstorming methods

With every method of brainstorming, the most important thing to remember is to follow the rule of quantity over quality. Brainstorming is aided by accepting all ideas, however seemingly unrealistic or irrelevant they might be. The goal is to create a large enough pool from which to pull the best ideas or combine ideas for the best solution or strategy.

Need to take a step back? Learn how to set up a brainstorming session with your team.

Brainwriting

When brainwriting, each group member is told to anonymously write down several ideas on post-it notes or index cards. Keeping ideas anonymous serves two important purposes: First, it prevents idea anchoring and any personality bias that may arise. Second, it provides a way for more introverted teammates to still contribute to ideation.

The result is a broader range of ideas that may not have surfaced if teammates were to brainstorm collectively. Ideas are then shared at random with the rest of the group, who offer feedback and critique each idea. As an alternative, ideas can also be collected and sorted by a team leader or management team. The overlying goal of brainwriting is to separate idea generation from discussion.

5 Whys analysis

If you've ever been interrogated by a toddler, you know what the 5 Whys might sound like. You give an answer to a question, only for it to be followed by an increasingly urgent series of "Why? Why? Why? Why? Why?"

Truth be told, that toddler is onto something. Created by Taiichi Ohno, the 5 Whys analysis was made popular at Toyota as a standard process for root cause analysis-getting to the heart of a problem.

Less structured than other more traditional problem-solving methods, the 5 Whys is simply what it sounds like: asking why over and over to get to the root of an obstacle or setback. This technique encourages an open dialogue that can trigger new ideas about a problem, whether done individually or with a group. Each why piggybacks off the answer to the previous why.

Both flowcharts and fishbone diagrams can help you track your answers to the 5 Whys.

Starbursting

Like a reporter trying to discover the pivotal information to a story, the starbursting method of brainstorming requires you to think about the who, what, where, when, why, and how for any new idea.

Place your main idea at the center of a star diagram, labeling each point of the star with those 5WH questions.

Next, develop a series of questions about your idea for each point. Starbursting is popular among brainstorming methods because of its exploratory nature: One question triggers another question, and before you know it, you have the beginnings of a solid strategy within the answers to those questions.

Mind mapping

Part of the challenge of brainstorming is trying to catch every idea swirling through the air. Mind maps are a creative, non-linear diagram used to capture that influx of ideas so you don't miss anything. Start with a topic or question in the center of the mind map, and branch off to include every participant's thoughts.

To create your own mind map online, open the template below or browse through our gallery of additional mind map templates.

Rolestorming/figure storming

Sometimes it's best to consider someone else's point of view. Considering how someone else might approach a challenge is the central concept behind rolestorming. A related practice, figure storming asks you to put yourself in the shoes of a famous historical figure.

For example, a legal advocacy group might have teammates ask "How would Mahatma Gandhi solve this problem?" Rolestorming has even made its way into pop culture: Anyone who has ever purchased or even seen the popular rubber WWJD (what would Jesus do?) bracelets has witnessed rolestorming in daily life. Rolestorming or figure storming works best for teams who find themselves coming up with the same ideas for repeating projects.

Gap filling

Gap filling, also known as gap analysis, requires you to identify your current state and your end goal and then find gaps between the two states. It asks the question, "How do we get from here to there?" Gap analysis is especially helpful when it comes to problem solving because it requires you to find workable solutions.

Flowcharts or mind maps can help you grid out your gap analysis. Mark the current state on one end and the ideal state on the other. Then team members will understand what they're working toward and start contributing ideas in the middle to fill the gap.

Brain-netting

Brain-netting has become a popular brainstorming technique in the modern workspace, where virtual collaboration and remote teams are much more common. Email communication can be effective but can take too much time and can be more formal than needed.

With brain-netting, participants use virtual collaboration software to share ideas in real time and can save ideas to a cloud-based storage platform or within the collaboration software itself. The way teams go about virtual collaboration can vary-team leaders may ask a general question like "What do we want our customers to experience?" and have teammates contribute their responses, or teams may engage in other techniques mentioned in this piece including rolestorming, reverse brainstorming, and rapid ideation.

Round robin brainstorming

To engage in this brainstorming technique, begin with having everyone sit in a circle. A team leader or facilitator will then pose a question or offer a request for ideas and have everyone in the circle contribute one by one.

This strategy is great for middle- to large-sized teams who may have quieter team members or for any team with noticeable imbalance in creative contribution. The most important rule for this technique is to treat all ideas with equal weight-give each teammate the same time and attention as they share, and avoid developing any ideas until everyone has had a chance to contribute. If and when a team member says that "Person X already said my idea," offer them time to come up with a new idea while completing the round robin.

Rapid ideation

Operating within a time limitation can often produce higher quality work. Indeed, Parkinson's Law teaches us that "work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion." Rapid ideation uses this phenomenon to its advantage: By setting a time limit on team members to contribute as many ideas or solutions as possible, team managers can maximize productivity and results.

Rapid ideation works well for a few different types of workers-for teams who dislike meetings, or who tend to get sidetracked, rapid ideation is a great way to approach the brainstorming stage of project execution.

A helpful tip to remember: Get silly! Research shows that teams who share funny or embarrassing stories about themselves reported 26% more ideas shared across 15% more categories over teams who kept meetings more formal. Having the space to let down certain social barriers reduces overthinking and produces a greater flow of ideas.

Reverse brainstorming

Most brainstorming techniques ask participants to solve a problem. Reverse brainstorming has participants cause a problem. Rather than forming solutions to a problem, reverse brainstorming has a facilitator ask a question like "How can we cause this problem?" Responses are then recorded and used as springboards to ideate a solution by working through the responses backwards.

Reverse brainstorming is a powerful way to open up new solutions to recurring problems: By challenging participants to work backwards, certain insights that may have been hard to imagine normally become crystal clear from a new perspective.

Stepladder brainstorming

This interesting style of brainstorming was developed in 1992 and involves teammates sharing their ideas individually before being influenced by the group.

The process starts with a facilitator posing a question or problem to the entire group and then having almost every group member exit the room, leaving two members present. These remaining two members share their ideas together while the rest of the team waits outside, until the facilitator directs an outside teammate to join the two inside.

The third and new teammate then shares their idea first, followed by the other two teammates. A fourth group member then enters the room and shares his or her idea first, followed by the other teammates present. The process continues this way until all group members have joined the room and shared their ideas.

Stepladder brainstorming is noted for solving the problem of groupthink by having participants share ideas individually and without influence from the group. It also allows the more shy group members to contribute without being intimidated by a room full of people.

SWOT analysis

SWOT analysis isn't exclusively a brainstorming technique: It's a strategic planning exercise that you can use to evaluate a product, project, person, or business. However, it may be valuable to focus your brainstorm with this mindset. SWOT stands for:

Strengths: How does the product, project, or business dominate and stand out from its competitors?

Weaknesses: What are the flaws that can hurt or put the product, project, or business in jeopardy?

Opportunities: What opportunities could the business capitalize on?

Threats: What are the possible downfalls lurking for the product, project, or business?

Spend some time in each category and add your teammates' thoughts onto a SWOT matrix.

Choose a brainstorm method and get started

Once you've selected your brainstorming technique or techniques, it's time to get to work. Remember: The first rule of brainstorming is quantity over quality. Encouraging teammates to have the bravery to risk imperfection and contribute ideas is the best way to guide your team toward new ways to approach problems-and often leads to powerful insights.

All these methods can be combined with others, giving you an endless arsenal of brainstorming techniques to continue ideating efficiently.

See our 7 tips for starting a brainstorming meeting with your team.

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Want to find new ways to generate ideas? This article will help you unpack different brainstorming techniques, learn the advantages and shortcomings of each, and select the best method for yourself and your team.

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Do you dream of working for yourself? Starting an education business can be a great way to expand your impact in education, but it also can be completely overwhelming. Even just generating education business ideas can be challenging.

You might struggle to come up with one great idea, feeling paralyzed to start a business that will be successful right off the bat. Or you might have too many ideas (I relate!) and feel unsure about just where to start.

Education business ideas matter, but so does taking action. When starting a business, taking action is usually the best move. When you're just starting out, move forward by testing your ideas and gathering data to make informed decisions.

By quickly generating ideas for an education business, you can move out of the idea phase and get creating. Follow these three steps to generate new business ideas that you can act on.

3 Steps to Generate Education Business Ideas

Step One: Come up with a LOT of possible ideas

One of the activities we do in the Grow Your Education Business Accelerator program is a design thinking strategy called "Crazy Eights." It starts by identifying a problem you hope to solve.

Then, fold a piece of paper into eight equal sections. In each section, you will draw or write about one potential solution to the problem. Take one minute to complete each of the eight sections, coming away with eight unique solutions to your problem.

The beauty of Crazy Eights is that it allows you to think outside of the box when starting an education business. It's relatively easy to come up with a couple solutions to a potential problem. But by the time you get to considering a fifth or sixth solution, things get harder. This is often where the magic happens when it comes to creating new business education ideas!

There are so many ways to solve problems. And at their core, businesses are about solving problems. The more innovation you can bring to the process, the better you'll be able to help your customers.

Step Two: Narrow down

Now that you've brainstormed many potential education business ideas to move forward with, pick one. I know it's hard! By picking the first idea that you're going to explore, you're not saying you'll never explore the other options. It just means that you'll start with this one.

Narrowing down your focus is often one of the hardest parts of figuring out how to create business ideas. But it's important to pick just one idea to start with so that you can properly test it out. If you're testing many ideas at once, it's very easy to get confusing data.

Look at the list you generated in step one. Consider which ideas feel the most exciting and valuable to you. What do you think would have the biggest impact? What feels the most interesting? Are there any that you don't want to move forward with?

When you're working to generate new business ideas it's important to focus on ones you'll actually want to move forward with. Only test ideas that you are excited about the possibility of building a business around.

Step Three: Test your education business idea

Now that you've come up with one idea, it's time to test it out! Our ideas may seem like great solutions to potential customers' problems, but we won't know until we talk to actual potential customers.

Find 5-10 people that you can talk to about your education business ideas. Make sure that they align with your ideal client or customer to ensure you get the best feedback.

This is not a sales pitch, but a chance to solicit authentic feedback and really listen to your potential customers. Share what you're thinking of developing, asking open-ended questions to get feedback and additional ideas.

For example, maybe you're hoping to solve the problem of teachers not having resources to address students' social and emotional needs. You hope to create a daily social and emotional curriculum that sends ideas to teachers via text.

To test your idea, you might talk to a variety of teachers to find out the social and emotional resources they use, any gaps they might be trying to fill, and to gauge their interest in receiving texts about lesson ideas.

This process will provide key insight into how an audience might react to your education business ideas and can help you fine tune your services and offerings even further.

Start Generating Your Own Education Business Ideas

Ready to take your business ideas to the next level and build an education business that makes a big impact? Apply to join our Grow Your Education Business Accelerator and get the support you need to make your business dreams a reality.

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Generating Education Business Ideas in 3 Steps | Educator Forever - Educator Forever

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Do you dream of working for yourself? Starting an education business can be a great way to expand your impact in education, but it also can be completely overwhelming. Even just generating education business ideas can be challenging. You might struggle to come up with one great idea, feeling paralyzed to start a business that will be successful right off the bat.

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If you're a teacher transitioning to work in education beyond the classroom, you might wonder how to create a productive workspace at home (and how you will fit all of your "teacher things" in a small corner of your home or apartment!).

It's incredible how much stuff we accumulate over the years. But when you work flexibly, less is really more. All you really need is to set up an intentional and productive home office space that allows your brilliance to shine through (and a solid internet connection).

Every educator's circumstance and living space is unique, so we've created tips to meet you where you're at! Keep reading for work-from-home office inspiration for your workspace.

Prioritize Your Needs for a Productive Workspace At Home

As educators, many of us consider the environment the third teacher, and it's no different for grown-ups! Here's a simple checklist of work-from-home office essentials that can support you in optimizing your productive workspace.

Consider the basics.

Don't overlook the small stuff! Choose a desk and chair that will help you stay comfortable. Some folks prefer traditional seating options while others benefit from more flexible seating. One of the biggest shifts from classroom teaching to flexible work in education can be increased time sitting down, so don't skimp on comfort! Invest in yourself to create a productive workspace at home.

Personalize your scheduling system.

After working with hundreds of educators through our Beyond the Classroom course, Curriculum Development Foundations program, and Grow Your Education Business Accelerator, we've found that everyone has different preferences about planning their days.

If you're trying to decrease clutter (and your paper trail), you may prefer online tools like Asana to manage multiple projects. Or, you might schedule meetings through Google calendar and create a weekly workflow using a Google document.

Other educators find it pleasing to write down their weekly commitments using a creative planner or large whiteboard that's visible in a central location.

Create mindful moments.

Part of learning how to create a productive workspace at home is being mindful of how much time you're spending in front of a screen. One way to combat screen fatigue is infusing mini moments of self-care to support your well-being.

Other suggestions to nourish yourself include:

If you have writer's block, set aside ten minutes to enjoy a guided meditation like this one with Jessamyn Stanley.

Download an app like Calm, Insight Timer, or Headspace to decompress during breaks.

Keep small protein-filled snacks in a basket near your desk and a large glass of cool water or tea to sip on throughout the day.

Get outside when you can!

Make your story visible.

Are you an international educator with beautiful photos of your experiences? Or an educator who saves your most cherished pieces of student artwork? Don't just throw away all of your treasures from the classroom because you are transitioning into something new.

Instead, make your story visible in your workspace! This will look different for everyone, but creating a photo book, collage of student art, or placing meaningful awards on the walls can create a haven that celebrates you and all of the important things you've done (and will continue to do) during your years spent making a difference in education.

Having visual representations of what is important to you is one of the most important parts of a productive work-from-home office setup.

Simplify Small Spaces for a Productive Workspace at Home

Sharing your living space with roommates or family members? Not a problem! It's possible to plan ahead to minimize distractions like kids running around, partners taking phone calls, and dogs barking at the delivery truck.

Ground yourself.

Think about items that will support you in staying focused in your work-from-home spaces when other things are going on around you.

Ideas include noise-canceling headphones, background music (I prefer classical, reggae, meditation, or jazz), and setting up your work time so it's during the quietest time of the day (e.g., nap time or while the kids are at school).

Consider purchasing some indoor plants to soothe and restore yourself. Plants make us happier along with many other research-backed benefits! Ultimately, it's all about optimizing your productivity while staying sane along the way.

Get organized.

All of that educational research you compiled into binders during college, (and the books that you pull out to dive into inquiry-based learning throughout the year), don't need to take up prime real estate on your desk. Clutter definitely doesn't make for a productive workspace at home!

Alternatively, keep project-specific books close by and figure out a way to store your tried and true books in a small bookcase, chest, or closet. Think about investing in a Kindle to dive into research related to your new position or storing resources on your Google drive or desktop.

The main thing to consider is how to access everything you need while also keeping your work-from-home office setup clutter-free.

Design a Collaborative Workspace With Young Kids In Mind

One of the most frequently asked questions we get is how we manage contract work with small kids at home. After all, you can learn all you want about how to create a productive workspace at home, but none of it matters if your kids are interrupting you!

We admit it takes a bit of flexibility and out-of-the-box thinking to work with kids at home, but tapping into your teacher skills can help!

Simple, open-ended toys.

If you have to work when your kids are home (it's inevitable at some point) you'll want to gather simple, open-ended toys that can entertain your child.

0-2 years old: large play mat, mirrors, scarves, safe teethers for exploration, board books, and playpen

2-5 years old: Wooden blocks, Magna-Tiles, coloring materials, picture books, and small animal figurines

5-8 years old: Sticker books, puzzles, writing journals, legos, or access to an online device (this is a great time to utilize screen time for the day!)

Accessibility and independence matter.

When you set up your child's area near your workspace, remember that they should be able to access and put away the toys on their own (with the exception of very young children who will need your support!).

Using baskets from thrift stores or multi-drawer storage containers can be helpful and make clean-up easier. Prepare children for busy days by integrating time for independent play in your daily flow, even when you aren't working. Even babies benefit from playing solo!

Finally, if you have a meeting scheduled while you're on parent duty, don't stress. Prioritizing your family shows companies that you're invested in the emotional well-being of your child(ren) - and other kids, too.

Need More Work From Home Ideas for Teachers?

Whether you need more tips on how to create a productive workspace at home or you're still in the classroom and looking for alternative careers for teachers, the Beyond the Classroom community can help.

In Beyond the Classroom, get expert guidance on transitioning out of the classroom and connect with other educators navigating the world of work-from-home, freelance jobs in education.

Still have questions? Contact Educator Forever to learn more.

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How to Create a Productive Workspace at Home - Educator Forever

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If you're a teacher transitioning to work in education beyond the classroom, you might wonder how to create a productive workspace at home (and how you will fit all of your "teacher things" in a small corner of your home or apartment!). It's incredible how much stuff we accumulate over the years.

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Insight Timer - #1 Free Meditation App for Sleep, Relax & More

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The best meditation app with the world’s largest FREE library of more than 190k guided meditations, 17k teachers & the world’s most loved meditation Timer.

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I like to pray in the morning before I eat.