Brainstorming

Brainstorming is a group creativity technique by which efforts are made to find a conclusion for a specific problem by gathering a list of ideas spontaneously contributed by its members.

The term was popularized by Alex Faickney Osborn in the 1953 book Applied Imagination.

Origin

Advertising executive Alex F. Osborn began developing methods for creative problem solving in 1939. He was frustrated by employees’ inability to develop creative ideas individually for ad campaigns. In response, he began hosting group-thinking sessions and discovered a significant improvement in the quality and quantity of ideas produced by employees. Osborn outlined the method in his 1948 book 'Your Creative Power' on chapter 33, “How to Organize a Squad to Create Ideas.”

Osborn's method

Osborn claimed that two principles contribute to "ideative efficacy," these being :

Following these two principles were his four general rules of brainstorming, established with intention to :