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Brainstorming Template

Write the question, pick a format and put the board on the shared screen. Type ideas as the room calls them out, group them into themes, dot vote, shortlist the best and leave with next steps that have an owner and a date. No sign-up for anyone.

Six brainstorming formats and when to use each

Every format does the same job: get many ideas out before anyone judges them. They differ in how they prompt people and who gets heard.

  • Open brainstorm

    One question, everyone calls out ideas, the facilitator types one per card. Fast and familiar. Works best in a small group that already talks freely; in a bigger room the loudest voices tend to fill the board.

  • Brainwriting 6-3-5

    Six people each write three ideas in five minutes, then pass their sheet on and build on what the last person wrote, for six rounds. Everyone writes at the same time, so quiet people contribute as much as loud ones. Change the people, ideas and rounds to fit your group; the board shows how many ideas a full rotation gives.

  • Mind map (as an outline)

    Start from the central topic, add the main branches (channels, customer groups, costs), then indent ideas under each branch. Good for mapping a whole area before choosing where to dig, such as a new territory or an event plan.

  • How Might We

    Turn the problem into open questions first: "How might we get a second meeting with lost accounts?" Then collect ideas for the best questions. Useful when the team keeps jumping to one solution or argues about what the problem is.

  • SCAMPER

    Seven prompts for improving something that already exists: Substitute, Combine, Adapt, Modify, Put to another use, Eliminate, Reverse. Good for reworking an offer, a sales process or a product bundle rather than starting from nothing.

  • Starbursting

    Collect questions, not answers: who, what, when, where, why and how. Run it before a launch, a new market or a big deal to find what you still need to know. The questions with the most votes become research tasks.

How to run a 40-minute brainstorm

The timebox on the board follows this plan. It is a suggestion: change the minutes to fit your group. In brainwriting the first step becomes one timed round per pass of the sheets.

  1. Collect ideas (15 minutes): read the question out, set the format and let ideas flow. One idea per card, no criticism yet, build on other people's ideas.
  2. Group (5 minutes): name the themes you see and put each idea in a group. Duplicates go together.
  3. Vote (5 minutes): everyone gets three dots (or the number you set) to spend on the ideas worth pursuing. Tally them with + on each card.
  4. Shortlist (5 minutes): star the top ideas, or shortlist the top three by votes, and check the room agrees.
  5. Next steps (10 minutes): turn each shortlisted idea into a next step with an owner and a date. A small test this week beats a big plan nobody starts.
  6. Print the summary or copy it into the team channel, and book the follow-up where the owners report back.

Ground rules that get more ideas

Separate generating from judging. While ideas are coming in, nobody says "we tried that" or "too expensive"; those comments belong in the vote and the shortlist. Ask for quantity first, welcome odd ideas (they often lead to practical ones), and build on what others said with "and" rather than "but".

Write the question as something you can act on. "How do we sell more?" gets vague answers; "How do we get a second meeting with accounts that went quiet after the demo?" gets ideas you can test next week. Give people a few minutes to think alone before anyone speaks, or use brainwriting, so the first idea said aloud does not anchor everyone else.

Brainstorming for sales teams

Sales teams brainstorm more often than they call it that: ways into a new account, answers to an objection that keeps coming up, a campaign for a slow quarter, the plan for a trade show booth. A short, structured session with a clear question and a vote gives the manager a ranked list and the reps a say in it.

Keep the session to the people who will do the work, start with a warm-up question so everyone has spoken once, and end with owners. If two shortlisted ideas compete for the same budget, score them against the same criteria in a decision matrix rather than arguing.

For running the meeting: how to run effective meetings, the parking lot in meetings, all-hands meeting.

The best part of a brainstorm is the talk around the cards.

A card says "partner with distributors"; the reasoning, the objections and who offered to look into it are in the conversation. Record the session with ParrotNotes and get the summary and action items, so the next steps match what the room agreed. Free for 100 minutes of recording a month.

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