Remote brainstorming for regular humans

This resource first appeared in issue #26 on 29 May 2020 and has tags Technical Leadership: Other, Managing A Team: Other, Becoming A Manager: Meetings, Becoming A Manager: Remote

Remote brainstorming for regular humans - Bartek Ciszkowski

Whiteboarding and brainstorming are harder to do when the team is distributed. Here are some suggestions for Ciszkowski on how to do distributed brainstorming:

Do it in ~20 minute chunks with 5 minute breaks
Use a simple white boarding tool (Ciszkowski suggests excalidraw which I hadn’t seen before) or even just a screenshared google doc to record responses. That way people can visualize connections between ideas to trigger new ideas.
Periodically restate to your objectives to keep the brainstorming on track.
Make sure everyone is chiming in.

I’ll just add something that’s not unique to distributed brainstorming: ban commenting on the ideas raised (especially critiques!) You are aiming for lots of ideas first. Only after idea-gathering is complete is it time for distillation and evaluation.