Brainstorm Session; Notes for the Participant
 by
Phil Bartle
Training Handout
 
 The facilitator may read this aloud to the participants.
 This may be handed out prior to the session for participants to read
 it in preparation

The Rules of the Game:

 The "brainstorm session" is like a game. It is not a competitive
 game in which the desire is for an individual is to win. It is a
 co-operation game in which the desire is for the group as a whole to
 win. As in any game, there are rules. These rules are artificial and
 temporary. In the game of football, for example, there are rules
 that the ball must stay within the lines of the football field. (If
 the ball goes outside the lines, for example, the play of the game
 is suspended until the ball can be brought back, in a particular
 manner, to within the boundaries). Football game rules are not the
 rules of real life, and are enforced only during the time of the
 football game.

 For the brainstorm to achieve its purpose, therefore, it is
 necessary for you, as a participant, to understand and observe the
 game rules during the game. The rules of the brainstorm session are
 few and simple. Sometimes, during the excitement of the play, they
 might be forgotten. The facilitator has the responsibility at such
 times to remind the group to adhere to the rules.

 One basic ground rule during a brainstorm session is that the
 facilitator asks the questions. These questions are intended to
 guide you and the other participants through the process. You and
 the other participants, as a group, are responsible for choosing the
 answers (leading to group decisions, not individual decisions). By
 asking the questions, the role of the facilitator is to focus on the
 topics at hand, and assist the group decision-making process. The
 most important ground rule during a brainstorm session is that there
 is to be no cross talk and criticism. When the facilitator asks a
 question, each and every participant is invited to make a
 suggestion. When any participant makes a suggestion, no other
 participant may make a comment about that suggestion. Remember that
 this rule applies only to the brainstorm session, not to real life.

 (We also do not follow football rules outside the game in real
 life). Notice that the facilitator will also not comment on, to
 criticise or to give feedback on any suggestion. The facilitator
 will only write the suggestion up on the board.

 This rule is important. If you feel that any other suggestion by a
 participant is unacceptable, partially of completely wrong, practice
 patience; do not respond to that person's suggestion, do not comment
 upon it, do not criticise it, provide no feedback about it. You are
 entitled, however, to make any suggestion, even one which
 contradicts what has already been suggested, and the facilitator
 will also write your suggestion on the board. The job of your
 facilitator is to maintain focus. You may be tempted to make
 comments related to the discussion at hand, perhaps shifting to a
 tangent. Discipline yourself to address your suggestions to the
 whole group, through the facilitator. This will help the group and
 will help the brainstorm session to be more efficient and effective
 in reaching group decisions.

The Topics:

 Brainstorm techniques can be modified and applied in many situations 
 and to many types of topics. The overall purpose of this series of
 community management training modules is capacity building and
 community empowerment. The topics on which your facilitator will
 focus, therefore, are related to that overall purpose. The
 facilitator will begin by asking what are the group's (or
 community's) main problems. You will, like all the other
 participants, be invited to make suggestions which the facilitator
 will then record up on the board. It is the most crucial one for the
 group (or community).

 You might wish to suggest that the biggest problem of the community
 is that there is no dance hall. The facilitator will not disagree
 or agree with you; simply record your suggestion up on the board.
 Some people may want to disagree with you, but there is no time in a
 brainstorm session for discussion and argument. Other participants
 may say there is inadequate transportation, others say there is not
 enough safe water, others may say disease is far too high, or that
 there is too much poverty. The facilitator will not judge any of
 them. The whole group, not any individual or faction, has the
 responsibility, aided by the facilitator, to rank all the listed
 problems in order of priority. When the problems are prioritised by
 the group (ie listed in order of importance to the group), the
 facilitator will then explain that the priority or number one "goal"
 of the group is the solution to the number one problem.

 A goal is a very general thing that is desired. It is not specific
 or measurable. The next task of the facilitator is to help the group
 translate the general goal into a set of specific and measurable
 objectives. (See the handout SMART for a list of characteristics of
 objectives). This aspect of the brainstorm is specific to community
 management training and may not be part of other kinds of brainstorm
 sessions where the topics differ. When the group has determined its
 objectives, it has answered the first of the four key management
 questions:

 . What do we want?
 . What do we have?
 . How do we use what we have to get what we want?
 . What will happen when we do?

 Those four questions from the essential heart of management, and
 therefore of community capacity building (which is why they are
 chosen as the topics of these brainstorm sessions). In these series,
 the brainstorm session is used as a participatory tool for answering
 these four questions as a group, to minimise their being answered by
 an individual or a faction within the whole group or outside the
 community. Answering the questions is what constitutes taking the
 decisions about what community actions to undertake, and lead to
 ways to organize in order to undertake them.

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Updated: 2003 May 15