Creativity. Thinking outside the box. Innovation. Whatever you call it, idea generation often starts with a brainstorming session and too often goes no where.

McKinsey alumni Kevin P. Coyne and Shawn T. Coyne offer a seven point guide that will make your efforts much more productive.

1. Know your organization’s decision-making criteria.
2. Ask the right questions
3. Choose the right people
4. Divide and conquer
5. On your mark, get set, go!
6. Wrap it up
7. Follow up quickly

Sounds like common sense, right? But you’ll see from the explanations how habit, misconceptions and politics often undermine these efforts.

And remember, while the first six points assure you of a productive effort this time, ignoring number seven will cripple not only this time, but all your next-times, too.

Flickr image credit: By Bengt Nyman

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 3rd, 2012 at 1:15 am and is filed under Communication, Culture, Ducks In A Row. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
Tags: brain, creative thinking, creativity, McKinsey
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