I have for many years felt this way. Now that it's in "print" - online print, anyway - I may finally build up the courage to come out of the closet!

DEATH TO BRAINSTORMING!

Brainstorming is the root of all creativity. Saying this, I view it as driving long term results and new business idea's. Without it you could be missing out on a new idea!

Dan - Thanks for taking the time to read and comment.

I don't agree that brainstorming is the root of all creativity. It can be useful as a problem solving technique, but it needs to be carefully managed from selecting the appropriate participants to conducting the session in an organized and productive way. Since few organizations have the patience or skills to do that, brainstorming ends up being an exercise in haphazard time-wasting.

I've found that it can be much more effective to have one person, or perhaps a very small team of 2 or 3, take responsibility for producing creative concepts which they then present to a group of people for feedback and additional input. The key to success here is giving the original group authority to make the final creative decision.

Matt, I agree with you and not so much with Richard, who has obviously spent too much time in rooms with everyone trying to come up with creative (as if 25 folks could draft "Romeo and Juliet" in two 5-hour meetings).

But I think there's some confusion over brainstorming here.

I agree, like you, the groups should be a few people, but when working on HUGE ideas (and I'm not talking the next commercial for detergent here) you need the top key people from each department working on the brainstorm.

But when you do creative work, then 2 person teams do the project best. You get the best creative work that way.

I mean, how many people does it take to come up with a coffee ad?

Once you've got the direction and thoughts from the key people, give it to a couple teams and go.