Osborne’s Rules

These are Osborn’s four rules for successful brainstorming:

• Focus on Quantity: Teams should work together to bring forward as many ideas as possible without concern about their value or how “out there” they may be
• NO CRITICISM: To achieve the goal of getting as many ideas as possible out there, absolutely no criticism should get in the way of this “opening of the imagination” – by suspending judgment, participants can feel free to generate unusual ideas.
• Encourage Wild Ideas: Staying with the openness of the process “wild” is a good thing as the objective is to think differently
• Combine and Improve Ideas: Now is the time for some focused thought – see what looks interesting – maybe a piece of one idea fits better with another – think puzzle and put interesting pieces together