Best Brainstorming Templates Online Web Tool or App for Free – xTiles
All your team is sitting next to a whiteboard and throwing ideas? We all have seen that concept dozens of times in movies, TV series, and memes. However, it’s only one option.
Will the fact that a team doesn’t even have to be in one room, in one building, or even on one continent to brainstorm together shock you? A free brainstorming template helps a team be a team on distance.
There may still be no homage to brainstorming templates in popular culture because they leave less time for interaction and arguments, so there will be fewer funny situations, and more work will be done.
Offices’ workflow has changed dramatically over the past few years. Some teams got used to it quickly and have already made different features and tools a part of their daily work routine. Some are still learning. And some are only trying to find their way through all the challenges the modern world has for businesses, teams, projects, and individuals.
Ready-made brainstorming templates may not be the panacea for these challenges, but they make generating ideas and finding solutions easier. Additionally, they allow you to put together a team of professionals from all over the world to generate ideas that can make a change.
What is brainstorming?
Brainstorming is an approach by which you’re looking for possible solutions to your issue. In a narrow sense, it’s that process where you sit near the whiteboard with your team, and your manager tries to squeeze ideas out of you. In the end, you have a board full of unstructured ideas, a bit of gibberish, and something no one can remember. Usually, the desk stays like that for weeks because it’s supposed to help, but it won’t. In the end, the bravest one will erase everything.
If you have ever worked in an office, you probably can relate to that description of brainstorming. However, it doesn’t have to be like that. Creative ideas can be born in a different way, easier and less painfull for your team.
In a broad sense, brainstorming is just the process of finding solutions to problems. You don’t have to be an office worker to use it. When you and your friends are trying to decide together where to have dinner tonight, you may call it brainstorming too.
The thing is, like any other creative thinking technique, brainstorming has its rules, especially when it comes to a team’s work and different projects. A badly chosen restaurant is one-evening trouble, while a wrong solution for a business might lead to a tremendous loss.
Let’s take a closer look at how you and your team members can brainstorm and, more importantly, how to make your brainstorming sessions successful with a good brainstorming template.
The most popular free brainstorming templates and how to use them
There are many brainstorming templates approaches to encourage team members to be active participants of ideation process. So, no matter what you do or what your project or purpose is, there definitely will be one for your specific needs. The first step is to find it so that you will ease the process, avoid unnecessary steps and questions, and get the most out of it.
Not all techniques are equal when you need to generate ideas. Some of them may not work for you, and if so, please, don’t think that all of them won’t. Also, some of them are good if you’re in the beginning, some are good if you’ve stuck somewhere in the middle, and some will help you structure all of your achievements and make the final push.
Below you will find the most popular brainstorming techniques, from those that are good for the start to those that help you keep moving when a lot has been done already. However, remember that each case and, most importantly, each team is unique, and sometimes you need to try a couple of them to find what will work best for you.
That technique is great for the team, who might not feel comfortable working together yet. If there’s a shy person too scared to share their ideas even though they are usually great, brainwriting may help. Or if you don’t want to turn your brainstorming session into an endless chit-chat, this technique may come in handy too.
How to use Brainwriting?
Just give each team member a list of paper and ask them to write down three (or less or more, or as many ideas as you want) ideas regarding your task. Encourage free thinking. Otherwise, team collaboration won’t be successful. Then, after a few minutes, collect the pages and start working on each together to find those worthy of further consideration and give up on those that are meaningless.
If your team works remotely, you can send emails asking them to come up with several ideas and opinions and then organize a meeting to consider the results. Brainwriting will save you time for discussion-worthy ideas and will ensure everyone is on the same page.
This approach is great if you already have something to work with. It helps you organize existing ideas, connect related ones, and deepen your understanding of the current problem. Additionally, it helps you not to miss anything during the sessions.
How to use Mind Mapping?
Put the main problem or concept in the center of your mind map and provide your teammates with all the background information on the subject you possess. Now, start with sub-ideas related to your topic and write them down around the main problem. At this stage, we don’t waste time filtering ideas. All of them will be reconsidered later.
When your central topic is surrounded by many ideas and the team is done with creating new ones, review the content of your board or page and try to find the connection between what is written. It’s important to discuss everything with your teammates. Maybe someone will see something strange or interesting or produce one more fresh idea you need.
When you have lots of creative or business ideas but nothing is organized, the brainstorming session might turn into torment. If mind mapping seems unattractive or you’ve already tried it and got nothing, you may try this technique. A lotus diagram is another helpful brainstorming template to structure your team’s previous ideas and define what is important.
How to use the Lotus diagram technique or Lotus blossom technique?
Think of the main idea/concept/question and put it in the center of your lotus diagram. Then, define 8 issues that are related to your center topic. The secret is that the issue you’re trying to resolve rarely stands alone. Going away from the center, think of 16 possible solutions to your issues. You can go further or stop at this stage. Review what you’ve got and discuss it with the team when you’re done.
Sometimes, your brainstorming session is so effective that you end up with tons of innovative ideas, and you need more sessions to organize everything or look on what you have from different perspectives. That’s when an affinity diagram may help you put your developments in order. The affinity diagram is often used to summarize the initial brainstorming rather than the actual brainstorming tool.
How to use the Affinity diagram technique or Affinity mapping?
The diagram structure allows you to categorize all your ideas so that you don’t get stuck only on a couple of standouts but analyze all of them before rejecting some. It consists of a few separate blocks. Each one is for ideas that are connected or similar.
Start with noting all the ideas your team comes up with. Put those related closer to one another or at a similar part of your whiteboard or page. When you’re done, give each category a name that will briefly yet precisely summarize its content. Now, analyze each category with your team. If there are too many categories or each is full of ideas, you may organize separate sessions for each category.
Each letter in this acronym represents a unique technique to see the problem from a different point of view and stimulate your and your team’s lateral thinking for collaborative problem solving. The template has 7 blocks, with the main issue in the center. When working on each block, ask your teammates to come up with the solution according to these parameters.
How to use S.C.A.M.P.E.R techniques?
Let the acronym lead your idea generation:
S – Substitute. Think about what can be changed to get a better result. Maybe the process has some blockers, or your product needs to be improved.
C – Combine. Review your ideas and think whether some can be combined into one but brilliant.
A – Adapt. Check if there’s something you can add to get a better result.
M – Modify. Check if there’s something you can change to get a better result or if your product or service will be better.
P – Put to another use. Imagine ways to use your product/service that differ from their initial purpose.
E – Eliminate. Check if there’s something in your product/service that you can remove.
R – Reverse. Think about what can be rearranged in your product/service to make it better.
Another hard but important part of ideation is deciding which idea or ideas are the best and need to be brought to life. Sometimes, during a brainstorming session, teams come up with numerous ideas but even a super huge and passionate team won’t be able to take care of them. We need all the resources available to focus on what is the most important to get the desired results.
How Now Wow matrix is a template for brainstorming to help you decide what would work best now and what should wait till next time.
How to run a brainstorming session with xTiles and get the maximum from it?
Above, we went over the 10 most popular brainstorming techniques and their agenda. However, we’re not finished yet if you’re determined to get the maximum out of your team’s brainstorming.
Here are a few more tips to make your next brainstorming session as effective as possible. Whether it’s an online brainstorming session or your team members meeting in one room, these tips will help you find creative solutions when there is nothing except a dead end, create a collaborative environment where everyone can share their ideas freely, and enhance your project management on all levels.
Gather a team that would represent all departments of your company if you want to think on something broad, or gather a team of a specific department if you need to discuss a narrow subject. However, let it be people who can contribute with their experience and creativity.
Before you start the session, discuss the rules and approaches you want to take. Let there be no interruption to clarifying organizational matters.
When using one of our brainstorming templates, you can freely put all the data you need, remove it, change placement, etc. Unlike the Word brainstorming templates, accidental clumsy movement won’t ruin the whole picture.
Sometimes one session might not be enough to come up with something truly great, so save all the progress and have the document shared with your team.
We ourselves know that ideation sometimes is no easy task, and sometimes your ideas flow unstoppable. In any case, what would we be without them? So, let’s dream up ideas and push them forward, and we hope our templates will become your reliable tool in this process!
