Brainstorming Steve Chenoweth & Chandan Rupakheti RHIT Chapters 12 & 13, Requirements Text, Brainstorming Techniques document Brainstorming involves generating lots of ideas, usually from lots of people.

Outline  Background Barriers to Elicitation  Techniques Brainstorming – Monday & Tuesday  Ch 12 in Requirements book Storyboarding – also Tuesday  Ch 13 in Requirements book

Three Common Barriers  “Yes, But…” Syndrome Develop techniques to get rid of the “But” early.  Undiscovered Ruins Syndrome “the more you find, the more you know” --> find the right balance  User and Developer Syndrome Communication gap between the users.

Outline  Background Barriers to Elicitation  Techniques Brainstorming – this slide set and quiz Storyboarding – next slide set and quiz

When do you brainstorm?  Nobody already knows the answer, but they do have some starting ideas. Or,  Several people think they do, but they have different answers! Or,  You know you need to get different perspectives on an issue. Or,  Nobody has any idea, but you can assemble experts and people familiar with the problem, and maybe get started on an idea. Monday’s quiz – Q 1

What’s involved in the preparations?  You need to identify the “client” for the brainstorming, and arrange with them, ahead of time, to limit the scope of what you want to brainstorm about.  You need to talk with each of the other participants, and Find out what their “stake” is in solving this problem. Get them to consider ways they think might work, to solve the problem. Monday’s quiz – Q 2

How do you start the brainstorming session?  Describe what’s going to happen, the whole process, to the whole group.  The client describes a short version of the problem, in a couple minutes.  You, the facilitator, write it on the board. Try to capture all of it. So, ask them to repeat if you miss something. Monday’s quiz – Q 3

Here’s the whole process – The Phases of Brainstorming  Describe the problem clearly  Discover = Idea Generation New Ideas Idea Development  Decide = Idea Reduction Eliminating Combining Choosing Describe Discover Decide Monday’s quiz – Q 4 You are now here 

 Encourages participation by all  Allows participants to build on one another's ideas  High bandwidth: many ideas in short period of time  Encourages out-of-the-box thinking Benefits

Describe  Everyone has to agree on the problem to be brainstormed before you start. The traditional method of having the “client” just define this at the start – that’s a shortcut.  If you have shared client-ship - It helps if they all have time beforehand to think of ideas on their own.

Discover  This is brainstorming proper.  We’ll try one method today, then others tomorrow.

Discover - One Brainstorming Method  Write down ideas on post-it notes, put on wall  Read ideas out loud  Capture ideas in person’s own words  Generate as many ideas as possible  No criticizing!  Take turns being the facilitator

Discover - A Similar Method  Use an easel or whiteboard  Ask for ideas and write them down as they are said aloud  While facilitator writes down the “headline” for each idea, the person giving it can explain just a little more  Try to get more ideas related to ones you are hearing  Once again - no criticizing!

Discover - Idea Development  Find ideas that are “most intriguing” Usually they have some “issues” but also a lot to like  Pick one, and brainstorm ways to “push them toward acceptable”  Then do this to a couple more  Gives “ideas about these ideas” which could make them into winners

Decide - Idea Reduction  Prune ideas…, After the crazy and wild ones disappear  Give one-line description for each remaining idea  Combine ideas  Classify the ideas into groups Monday’s quiz – Q 5

Idea Reduction…  But there are situations, where not all ideas can be taken forward, in this case we have to choose the ideas that we take forward. How do we do this? See if any more can be combined Vote on the ideas (i.e. rank them) Prioritize the ideas Try to decide based on “acceptable risk” and “desired opportunities” so you don’t end up with just easy ones everyone already knew Try to leave with “as many as you can afford to consider further”  Put all remaining ideas on someone’s action list to develop

Web based brainstorming  Using the internet to facilitate the brainstorming in a collaborative way.  Is this useful? Why?  How do we do it?

Practice Brainstorming – We’ll Do This as Teams  Describe - Features, requirements, enhancements, user interfaces or anything that you would like to see on the degree planner project.  Discover - Idea Generation (14 minutes) Let’s generate ideas for this. (7 minutes) Find ones that are intriguing & find ways to support those (7 minutes)  Decide - Once we are done let’s practice Idea Reduction (10 Minutes) (Eliminate invalid ideas) – if you’re not very daring!  Else, try to think of ways to make them more acceptable Group those that should go together One line description of categories Decide - Voting & Prioritizing  Leave with action list