—- **FOR NEW STUDENTS**————————————————

1. 🔊 What industry do you work in and what is your role?
2. 🔊 What are your responsibilities in your role/position?
3. 🔊 Can you describe to me the function of your workplace/company?
4. 🔊 How many departments, how many offices. National or International?
5. 🔊 What is the Minimum requirements for employment i.e Education or Experience?
6. 🔊 How many opportunities are there to ‘move up the ladder’?
7. 🔊 What is the process for changing job roles i.e Interview? Test?

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🔊 General discussion about your workweek:

1. 🔊 Current projects? Deadlines? Opportunities?
2. 🔊 Anything of interest happening?

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Listening

Script

1. 🔊 brainstorming is one of those business terms that’s gained a lot of popularity recently it can be a powerful tool used for coming up with ideas if done the correct way, however some people are doing it all wrong. so what is true brainstorming and how can your team use it most effectively?

2. 🔊 brainstorming is an old advertising term coined by ad exec Alex F Osbourne in 1939. he noticed his employees were having a difficult time coming up with ideas for ad campaigns, rather than having his team work as solo thinkers he put them in groups and realized the quantity and quality of ideas significantly improved

3. 🔊 but he didn’t just sit a group down in a room with a bowl of pretzels and say go! Osbourne claimed in his 1948 book “your creative power” that two principles are crucial to contribute to ideative efficacy and that is that everyone must defer judgment and strive for quantity

4. 🔊 alongside these two principles were four general rules of brainstorming; go for quantity, withhold criticism, welcome wild ideas and combine and improve ideas

5. 🔊 quantity breeds quality; the greater the number of ideas, the greater the chance of thinking of an effective solution.

6. 🔊 withhold criticism; in brainstorming criticism of ideas generated should be put on hold instead participants should focus on extending or adding to ideas, by suspending judgment everyone will contribute more ideas

7. 🔊 welcome wild ideas; to get a good long list of suggestions don’t make boundaries to the ideas based on budget or feasibility sometimes the craziest ideas become creative solutions to complex problems

8. 🔊 combine and improve ideas;  brainstorming has to address one specific question, sessions trying to solve for multiple questions can be ineffective. Instead of inserting judgment or criticism, work through ways to build off each other’s ideas and solutions.

9. 🔊 it’s important to realize that there is a right and wrong way to brainstorm as a group, if performed correctly brainstorming can be a huge asset to any team when solving problems no matter how small big or complex the problem seemed a proper group brainstorm session will lead to a creative solution

Discussion

1. 🔊 How often to you get the chance to brainstorm in your current workplace? How are they usually conducted?

2. 🔊 How many unique voices are there in your discussions? (different expertise/ experience, departments/ educations etc)

3. 🔊 Using the two principles; everyone must defer judgment and strive for quantity

4. 🔊 And four rules; go for quantity, withhold criticism, welcome wild ideas and combine and improve ideas.

5. 🔊 Let’s brainstorm potential business options we may want to explore in the future, wether it be running our own small business, developing a product or simulating a trial brainstorm for an upcoming project at work