Creativity, Brainstorming and Work Spaces

This article does a good job, at clearing misconceptions about Brainstorm, Creativity and how it can be influenced by people dynamics as well as the work space they are in.

Following is what I understood:

• Brainstorming is not as productive as it is made out to be. Most importantly, the notion that during brainstorming session, we should not be critical of the ideas and rather get an inventory of ideas. This is supposed to ensure free flow of ideas. It does not seem to be the case in real world. 

•  Research is proving that it is much better to let people question the ideas and it seems to be leading to better ideas which are far more original than what brainstorming does.

•  Article seems to suggest that Unfamiliar perspectives can be thought provoking and can lead to new ideas. Success of broadway musicals where artistes were a mix of people who have worked together and some newbies indicates that it truly is a case.

•  It is a lesson worth keeping in mind that those teams would be more successful which have a healthy mixture of people who have worked as a team earlier and also to have some new people who have different perspective that rest of the team.

• To get success as a team, it is important that team is able to meet physically often and this leads to an insight that work spaces play an important role in fostering creative collaboration across different groups.

• Success of MIT Radar Lab, Building 20 as well as Pixar setup by Steve Jobs proves that workspaces are much more important than we think.

As I work in Software development with different set of people, these lessons are important for me and people like me.