Brainstorming is one of the primary methods employed during the Ideation stage of a typical Design Thinking process. Brainstorming is a great way to generate many ideas by leveraging the collective thinking of the group, by engaging with each other, listening, and coming up with a concrete plan based on ideas of other participants.

Example:

• The student used colors to organize her ideas: red is the idea she started with, green are broader concepts, black are subtopics. She put a red star on the topic she decided to focus on. 
• Situation: The number of customers to a shop has reduced in recent months; the owner is looking for new ways to attract new customers and to increase the frequency of existing customers.

Problem: How can we get more customers.

The Brainstorming :

• Plan the session – fix the place and time 
• The shop employees are invited to participate. However the supervisor and owner are not involved in the session 
• The session is held away from the shop in a relaxing environment 
• The facilitator is a good communicator and uses a word association game to break the ice and warm-up the group 
• The facilitator raises the question: How can we get more customers? She/he writes down the problem on a flipchart 
• She/he set out the rules of the session; 20 minutes, anyone can produce an idea, every participant has to respect the ideas of his/her colleague and NOT CRITICISE! 
• The facilitator calls for ideas 
• The scribe, using a mind map, writes down the ideas generated.