Candor | A Better Way to Brainstorm

Brainstorming is by far the most common technique companies use to generate new ideas and find creative solutions to organizational problems. Brainstorming is so popular because 50 years of management advice has taught us to believe in the power of teamwork. We are taught that by working together to solve a problem, a group can come up with more ideas than the same person working alone could. Unfortunately, this advice is dead wrong. Decades of research have consistently shown that groups that brainstorm think of far fewer ideas than those who work alone and then brainstorm together. In fact, some data suggests that traditional brainstorming can cut innovation output in half.

Brainstorming fails because we are social animals. Data shows that in a typical brainstorming session, people spend more time thinking about group dynamics than generating new ideas. In psychology, this process is called groupthink. So how do we harness the collective wisdom of a group without succumbing to groupthink? The answer is private data collection.

Unbiased Brainstorming

The key to successful brainstorming is to first let people generate ideas privately before discussing them as a group. To work most effectively, people should present their ideas to the group before hearing other people’s perspectives. Research shows that collecting ideas privately before discussing them as a group produces more diverse ideas and better solutions than typical brainstorming methods.

How to Use Candor

Candor is designed to allow you to quickly collect and organize the independent ideas generated by your brainstorming group. To use Candor, follow these four steps:

• Step 1: Send your questions or problems to the members of your brainstorming group.

• Step 2: Have everyone submit their own ideas to the meeting organizer.

• Step 3: Meet in small groups and have the meeting organizer present all the ideas generated by the group independently.

• Step 4: Organize ideas by topic, discussing the merits of each topic.

Generate more ideas

Honesty can generate more diverse or creative ideas because people don't get obsessed with the first idea on the table, thus avoiding the problem of idea anchoring and clustering.

Avoid bias

People's honest and unbiased opinions are exposed because there is no social pressure on the ideas they generate. Review all ideas at the beginning of the meeting and let everyone have a say to maximize the creativity of the meeting room.

Save time

Honesty is very effective, so you can spend less time in meetings and more time getting things done. Because it is a more efficient process, more ideas are put on the table.

Candor advocates using online tools to collect users' ideas anonymously, and then share these ideas at the meeting. Anonymity allows people who are not good at talking to speak more freely. Each idea is a card, which supports the use of different colors to distinguish.

When the meeting host creates an idea board, he will get the invitation URL through the "Invite" on the upper right. As long as the invitation URL is shared with others, others can anonymously propose their own ideas on the board. Except for the meeting host (the one who created the board), others can only see "their own ideas" for the time being, which avoids problems such as shyness, being led by other ideas, and being anchored by previous ideas.

As long as the host publishes the idea wall, all participants can see everyone's ideas. Everyone can open the idea wall to discuss, delete, and organize. The meeting host can be responsible for moving the order of ideas, gathering related ideas, and then reaching the final result of the meeting discussion.