Productive brainstorming can help to find creative ideas and new approaches. Especially in the team, many more ideas come together as you inspire each other. So, you can easily gather together the many arguments for a particular product or consider new ways of addressing customers. A common problem with brainstorming, however, is that some participants hardly speak. In addition, there is a risk that interesting approaches are prematurely criticized and thus forgotten. The good news: There is a method that will allow you to gather lots of ideas in a short time and involve every participant. Only after everyone has recorded their results in writing, you discuss them and think about what ideas you want to implement. In contrast to brainstorming, in this particular case one speaks of „brainwriting“.

The creativity technique 6-3-5

With the Creativity Technique 6-3-5, brainstorming becomes child’s play – regardless of whether you want to gather ideas or deepen a specific topic further. The marketing and business consultant Professor Bernd Rohbach developed it in 1968. All you need is six participants, paper and pens. Everyone gets a hand on which he draws a table with three columns and six lines. You write about the specific question or topic. In the first line you enter three ideas. You set a fixed period, for example, three to five minutes – depending on the complexity of the issue. Then she passes the sheet clockwise to the other five participants, who also write three keywords in the line below. Take up existing ideas, add to them or continue. With six participants, who each contribute three ideas per sheet and hand over their paper five times, you will have 108 results in the end. For best practice, you should appoint a moderator. He explains the rules, outlines the topic and measures the time.

The 6-3-5 technique is ideal for gathering a wealth of ideas in just 30 minutes. So, what are you waiting for? Grab paper and pencils and let your creativity run wild! With this method, you can get your business up and running in no time.