A- Purpose of the Tool:

Brainstorming was coined in 1940 by Alex OSBORN, an American advertiser. It is a technique centered on the search of original ideas which can be practiced within a firm. It consists in gathering together a group of persons (5 to 8 persons) for the purpose of making suggestions and thereby generating an important quantity of ideas about a selected theme.

B- Means:

The organization of brainstorming necessitates human and material resources, as described below:

C- Average Time:

The duration may vary, taking 20 to 45 minutes on average. A brainstorming session should be concluded as soon as the participants start to run out of ideas.

D- Description of the main stages and activities to do:

• Preparation: Constitution of an effective work team: the choice of persons having different points of view on the subject and the choice of venue and the tools that are necessary to hold a brainstorming session. 
• Defining the Subject: The principle is to agree with all the participants on the problematic issue to be resolved.
• Search and collection of Ideas: This is a creative phase and the goal is for each participant to spontaneously put forth their ideas without (self) censorship (at this stage, quantity should be sought). 
• Ranking/sorting of ideas, synthesis and selection of solutions: In the next stage, all the ideas should be grouped by way of concordance, brushing aside repetitions, combining ideas, and eliminating ideas which are considered inapplicable
• Sharing with the participants or the interested persons the main ideas which hold the potential of being realized. A grade might be given to each idea depending on its pertinence and feasibility.
• Drafting a synthetic summary which takes up the main stage of the session and how it is unfolded, as well as a summary of the main results of the exercise.

E- Application Example:

As a technique, brainstorming has been used in business areas where innovative ideas are necessary as they allow a company to differentiate itself on the market. This is the case of areas such as television, cinema, video-games, advertising, events management…

For example, the video game industry constantly requires innovation and the creation of new concepts and techniques. This industry needs creative minds in several areas (graphic design, music…). Brainstorming meetings generally gather together various profiles and sometimes, experts drawn from quite different fields, which allows to generate a panoply of new ideas.

Television animation also calls for innovative concepts all the time. Such as when it comes to creating new TV shows or enriching existing ones. For this, it is necessary to involve creative people in ad hoc brainstorming sessions.