Preparing for the Storm – The Brainstorm, That Is

June 26, 2024

At LPR we love a good brainstorm session – and we do a lot of them! From weekly Stormshops (which alternate between brainstorms and media relations workshops) to virtual brainstorm challenges, we’re always planning for or proactively thinking about our clients. And while it’s all fun and games for the participants, a lot of work goes into making sure each brainstorm is successful. Here’s how we do it!

Getting Started

The most important thing is to know what you’re brainstorming. That seems obvious, I know. But there are two sides to consider. First, be clear about the client’s goal, message, timing, and key audience. You can have a million great ideas, but if they don’t deliver against the business goals or reach the desired audience, they’re not the right ideas. Second, know the types of ideas you need so that you give clear directions to your participants. Do you want a flashy stunt? A creative pitch angle? A campaign? An influencer experience? Maybe all of the above, which is fine, too.  

To Prepare or Not to Prepare?

While you, the leader of the brainstorm, should always be prepared, you can choose how to prepare your participants. Most often, I prefer to wait until the brainstorm to give people the information about what we’re ideating around. This allows for unbiased, unresearched, free-thinking and I love hearing people just shooting from the hip. However, sometimes if it’s a more complicated subject matter or a very specific ask, I will share an email a few hours to a day before the brainstorm to give people time to do some research or get an understanding of the topic so we don’t waste too much of our time together on just the explanation.

Brainstorm Rules

Every brainstorm should have some ground rules, but they are pretty easy to follow:

1. There are no bad ideas – say it, write it, share it, we are looking for quantity!
2. Speak up – if you are in the room (IRL or virtually) then you’ve got something to say, and we want to hear it!
3. Build; don’t break – Feel free to build on someone’s idea or use it as a spark to another idea, but do not break it down or tell us why it won’t work

There are also parameters, but not overly restrictive. If there are key details or real specifics you need, go ahead and share that with your group, but it’s also okay to think broadly because everything is scalable! I like to say things like “We have budget, but not Kardashian budget,” or “We are very focused on earned media for this one, but if you have an influencer idea let’s hear it,” or “This is a Q2 push, but it’s okay to think beyond that as well.” Too many guidelines can hinder creativity.

Which Brainstorming Style to Use

With how often we brainstorm, we’ve got to change it up to keep it fun, fresh, and creative! Since we are hybrid, we brainstorm both IRL and virtual, so here are a few of the styles we enjoy that always deliver great thinking:

• Round Robin
  Make the most of your time together and get ideas across a range of topics by creating stations around your space. Each station has a specific topic or tactic to brainstorm against. Break your group into teams and have them rotate through each station and build out detailed concepts – for example, if it’s a pitch angle, they need the outlet it’s a fit for and the assets to make it happen.
• Sticky Breakouts
  Start by giving everyone in the room a pack of sticky notes, then give them a prompt – they will write one answer on each sticky note. If you are looking for opportunistic moments to weave a client into news of the day, ask everyone to write key pop culture or “holiday” moments. If you’re looking for earned media, have everyone write down media outlets. Hang them up, and then have each group choose 3 sticky notes to guide their thinking.
• Speed Rounds
  While it does make some people sweat, it’s definitely a fan favorite! Everyone gets a piece of paper. You can either fold it in eighths or just make a running list. Everyone writes one idea on their paper in 60 seconds, then the pass the paper to the person on their right. Read what is already written and then build on an idea or add a new one. Papers get passed around until you get yours back. (Sometimes we add more time on for the last few rounds to give people time to read!)  
• Excel-lent Thinking
  A twist on the Round Robin, when we are brainstorming virtually, sometimes we’ll create an Excel spreadsheet with different topics/tactics on each tab. Then the groups are assigned a tab to start in, and all alerted to shift to a new tab to add more ideas do it. We’ll usually start all together for the explanation, then do breakout rooms for smaller groups so they can chat and type in their ideas together.
• Lucidspark
  Another great tool for virtual brainstorming is Lucidspark, which offers virtual whiteboard templates. We’ll all log in to a Teams meeting, share the template, and then all chat, type, and build out our concepts together. From mind mapping and brainwriting to spider and Venn diagrams, you can choose the template that fits your topic(s) and group best.
  

Before you go…

Leave time at the end of your brainstorm to bring people back together. Have your group of creative thinkers come back and hear which ideas they are most excited about. They can vote on their top 2-3 ideas, each group can share the favorite idea they came up with, and you can even make groups swap their favorite ideas to see how they can build on them. This gives you a chance to hear more of the creativity/detail than they may have written down, and seeing others’ creativity can be so inspiring. You may even get a few final sparks before you thank everyone for their time and send them on their way!