Brainstorming

1. Brainstorming Steve Chenoweth & Chandan Rupakheti RHIT Chapters 12 & 13, Requirements Text, Brainstorming Techniques document Brainstorming involves generating lots of ideas, usually from lots of people.

2. Outline • Background • Barriers to Elicitation • Techniques • Brainstorming – Monday & Tuesday • Ch 12 in Requirements book • Storyboarding – also Tuesday • Ch 13 in Requirements book

3. Three Common Barriers • “Yes, But…” Syndrome • Develop techniques to get rid of the “But” early. • Undiscovered Ruins Syndrome • “the more you find, the more you know” --> find the right balance • User and Developer Syndrome • Communication gap between the users.

4. Outline • Background • Barriers to Elicitation • Techniques • Brainstorming – this slide set and quiz • Storyboarding – next slide set and quiz

5. When do you brainstorm? • Nobody already knows the answer, but they do have some starting ideas. Or, • Several people think they do, but they have different answers! Or, • You know you need to get different perspectives on an issue. Or, • Nobody has any idea, but you can assemble experts and people familiar with the problem, and maybe get started on an idea. Monday’s quiz – Q 1

6. What’s involved in the preparations? • You need to identify the “client” for the brainstorming, and arrange with them, ahead of time, to limit the scope of what you want to brainstorm about. • You need to talk with each of the other participants, and • Find out what their “stake” is in solving this problem. • Get them to consider ways they think might work, to solve the problem. Monday’s quiz – Q 2

7. How do you start the brainstorming session? • Describe what’s going to happen, the whole process, to the whole group. • The client describes a short version of the problem, in a couple minutes. • You, the facilitator, write it on the board. • Try to capture all of it. • So, ask them to repeat if you miss something. Monday’s quiz – Q 3

8. Describe Discover Decide Here’s the whole process – The Phases of Brainstorming • Describe the problem clearly • Discover = Idea Generation • New Ideas • Idea Development • Decide = Idea Reduction • Eliminating • Combining • Choosing You are now here  Monday’s quiz – Q 4

9. Benefits • Encourages participation by all • Allows participants to build on one another's ideas • High bandwidth: many ideas in short period of time • Encourages out-of-the-box thinking

10. Describe • Everyone has to agree on the problem to be brainstormed before you start. • The traditional method of having the “client” just define this at the start – that’s a shortcut. • If you have shared client-ship - It helps if they all have time beforehand to think of ideas on their own.

11. Discover • This is brainstorming proper. • We’ll try one method today, then others tomorrow.

12. Discover - One Brainstorming Method • Write down ideas on post-it notes, put on wall • Read ideas out loud • Capture ideas in person’s own words • Generate as many ideas as possible • No criticizing! • Take turns being the facilitator

13. Discover - A Similar Method • Use an easel or whiteboard • Ask for ideas and write them down as they are said aloud • While facilitator writes down the “headline” for each idea, the person giving it can explain just a little more • Try to get more ideas related to ones you are hearing • Once again - no criticizing!

14. Discover - Idea Development • Find ideas that are “most intriguing” • Usually they have some “issues” but also a lot to like • Pick one, and brainstorm ways to “push them toward acceptable” • Then do this to a couple more • Gives “ideas about these ideas” which could make them into winners

15. Decide - Idea Reduction • Prune ideas…, After the crazy and wild ones disappear • Give one-line description for each remaining idea • Combine ideas • Classify the ideas into groups Monday’s quiz – Q 5

16. Idea Reduction… • But there are situations, where not all ideas can be taken forward, in this case we have to choose the ideas that we take forward. How do we do this? • See if any more can be combined • Vote on the ideas (i.e. rank them) • Prioritize the ideas • Try to decide based on “acceptable risk” and “desired opportunities” so you don’t end up with just easy ones everyone already knew • Try to leave with “as many as you can afford to consider further” • Put all remaining ideas on someone’s action list to develop

17. Web based brainstorming • Using the internet to facilitate the brainstorming in a collaborative way. • Is this useful? Why? • How do we do it?

18. Practice Brainstorming – We’ll Do This as Teams • Describe - Features, requirements, enhancements, user interfaces or anything that you would like to see on the degree planner project. • Discover - Idea Generation (14 minutes) • Let’s generate ideas for this. (7 minutes) • Find ones that are intriguing & find ways to support those (7 minutes) • Decide - Once we are done let’s practice Idea Reduction (10 Minutes) • (Eliminate invalid ideas) – if you’re not very daring! • Else, try to think of ways to make them more acceptable • Group those that should go together • One line description of categories • Decide - Voting & Prioritizing • Leave with action list