Tag Archives: ideas

Brainstorming – Sprinting

Posted on by Jennifer

What’s the longest meeting that you’ve ever sat in? I can think back to a few meetings I’ve been in that have lasted around 4 to 5 hours. Granted, we accomplished a lot, but it could have all been done in far less than an hour.

Typically, a human brain can concentrate on something for about 20 minutes.  This explains why the person to your left keeps yawning, the person on your right is playing with their phone, and everyone has suddenly gotten off track and started talking about what their plans are for the weekend.

Short intense meetings are actually proven to be more effective that those long drawn out meetings. If you’re looking for a quick and effective way to have your meetings, you should try sprinting. What’s sprinting? It’s a great way for individuals and groups to brainstorm and find solutions to problems.

Here’s how you do it:
First, You’ll need a timer. Set it for 20 minutes and start it. Next, You’ll need to state the problem that you want to solve and figure out what the answer is for it. Try to use as few words as possible. For example, your problem is that your meetings are always too long. Your answer could be finding ways to have more effective meetings. Then, solve the answer. In other word, what do you need to do to accomplish this? Make a list of ideas, but do not all anyone to judge them at this time.

Take a 20-minute break.

Now, Set the timer for 10 minutes and start it. You’ll need to separate all of the ideas into two categories; keep (things that you would like to look further into) and trash (things that would be best rejected at this time). Next,  Set the timer again and use 10 minutes to elaborate more on the ideas in the keep stack. Feel free to combine two ideas into one, if needed.

You should now have a solution to your problem. If not, just follow the steps again. Next time you schedule a meeting, try this out for a change. After becoming accustom to this way of thinking, your team should be able to come up with innovative ideas in no time.

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