Brainstorming can be seen as fluffy, even superfluous. Seeing engineers and designers make recommendations like “fill it up with helium to make it lighter” or “what about aerogel” can be a little frustrating (especially if you don’t believe in brainstorming AND are the one paying these engineers).
But what’s happens after a (good) brainstorm is the ideas are judged. Some are inside the “box” of reality, some are outside the box of “reality”. Get enough of these ideas (echoing the mantra “brainstorms are about quantity not quality), and you get a pretty good idea of the box you are working in.
Ironically you brainstorm to get inside the box. Then execute.
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Article by chris loughnane
Chris is Design Engineer + Sustainability Advocate at a Boston area design consultancy and has written 150 sweet posts for the Product Development Notebook.
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