Brainstorming and Brainwriting

I recently read an article, written by Chauncey E. Wilson, in which he elaborates on the term Brainwriting and explains how this technique for generating ideas, complements Group Brainstorming sessions.

Chauncey says that when time is limited or the group of participants is large, Brainwriting is "a method for generating ideas about products or processes by asking participants to write their ideas on paper rather than shouting them out, as they would in a traditional Brainstorming session".

Chauncey refers to interactive Brainwriting sessions, where all participants are asked to write down their thoughts and ideas and then pass the paper to the next person in the group. Again, this person is now expected to read what the previous one wrote and add something new. Then the paper passes to a third person and this process ir repeated for several times, until there is a good amount of information depicted on the papers.

Then all papers are posted on a board, where all participants can see and comment. According to Chauncey one main advantage of Brainwriting (altough not a common technique yet) is that "the blocking effects found in face to face brainstorming are reduced when people write their ideas privately".

You may read more on Brainstorming Pitfalls and Best Practices at:
Wilson, Chauncey E. (2006). Pitfalls and Best Practices, Interactions, vol.13, no. 5 (Sept./Oct. 2006), pp.50-53