Best Apps for Managing Brainstorming Sessions

To key to a productive brainstorming meeting is good preparation. Just turning up at the allotted time and allowing everyone to unleash their minds might sound like spontaneous creativity but can be counterproductive. Everyone should have a framework to build off. This means good communication, to begin with, ensuring those attending your brainstorming know what their roles are. We all want to be good at our jobs, after all. The easiest way to do this is via the meeting invites you to send out – tell everyone the purpose of the meeting and what you expect them to do in advance. This could involve research, preparing a quick presentation, or coming up with a list of ideas. Don’t come into the session completely cold. 

During the brainstorming meeting itself, you must get the most out of the time available to you. It could be you only have 30 minutes. You want creativity to come to the fore but in an organized, productive manner. Therefore, you should assign someone to take notes to make sure everything is captured and can be actioned later. An app like Coggle can work here, instantly transforming your ideas into a mind map. Also, consider using a task management tool here. It’ll make sure you get through all the points you wanted to make, cover all the research you’ve prepared, and ensure everyone has a chance to speak.  

Once the meeting is over, it doesn’t mean your work stops there. You have conducted the brainstorming session for a reason – to generate ideas. Now it’s time to consolidate those ideas and perhaps pull together a project plan. To do that, you’ll need to analyze the ideas created at the session. Which ones stood out as relevant and had potential? And which should be respectfully cast aside? By doing this, you’ll probably find similar themes you can categorize the ideas into and build a picture about the direction you want to take to build a successful business. Finally, consider asking the attendees for feedback on your session. It’s helpful to know where you could improve next time.