Find solutions

- One of my favorite things to do professionally and personally is to play with potential. I love to not only come up with ideas, but also to facilitate others doing the same thing. Even when I'm facilitating and know that I have to keep my ideas out, it can still be so much fun. There are a number of tools that can help you come up with solutions that will lead you and your team to find the best solution. One of my favorite methods is brainstorming. Many people think they know what brainstorming is. You may think of coming up with ideas in class or just throwing ideas out among friends, but there are a few specific steps that make brainstorming a powerful tool. Ideally, you want to have a facilitator, someone that is not directly involved in coming up with ideas. The facilitator should frame the problem for the group and offer some time for people to ask questions so everyone knows what they're coming up with ideas for. The facilitator should state the rules. No evaluation. No talking down ideas, but also no talking up ideas. Just throw ideas out. Now, you can build on ideas. This is one of the key ways brainstorming works really well. The facilitator should keep things going and make sure people are engaging. It's totally okay to say, "Okay, Beatrice, what are your ideas?" If you have members of your team that are either prone to being quiet or prone to overwhelming conversation, you might want to look at buzz groups. To use buzz groups, you start the process the same as you would with brainstorming by making sure everyone is clear to the problem and the boundaries of the decisions. You then divide everyone up into smaller groups of six to eight people and have them work together to come up with ideas. In this situation, those quieter people are more likely to speak up and those louder folks are more likely to tone it down. You then can bring everyone together to share their ideas. Another great method that you can do individually in small groups or even in large groups is mind mapping. Mind mapping is a visual process in which you take one concept and then draw other related ideas coming off that idea, and then continue. For instance, in the restaurant industry, you may be trying to solve why income from food has declined. So you could start by drawing declined sales in a circle. Then maybe you think, "Okay, well, it could be purchasing," so draw that circle, or increased waste, draw that circle as well. Then you think, "Well, waste could be not prepping right or it could be over prepping," so you draw those two circles off of waste. And you continue with this until you've exhausted all the ideas. Pick a problem and map your solutions. You can also check out other methods like SCAMPER or the Six Hats of Thinking. These are other guided methodologies that can help you frame your ideas. Regardless of the method you choose, what you want during your brainstorming stage is ideas. The more the merrier. I would rather you have too many ideas on the table and not need them versus needing an idea that's just not on the table.