What suggestions would you give for running a Brain Storming session?

I'm presuming most people on here have or have had brain storming sessions with friends, coworkers or who ever.

Did you have any rules going into it, was it entirely ad-hoc, did you have any agenda items to try to get taken care of during it?

Any lessons learned? Or tips to get more out of it?

Thanks.

For my brainstorming sessions, I make sure I'm always asking questions and never take an idea off the table for someone else. Sure, if it's a bad idea to you, you could work around it and try to get them interested in something else, but being negative is one of the worse and fastest ways to bring brainstorming to a halt.

Also, no idea is off limits. When someone adds an idea, you play with it and try to get it to work with all of the other ideas. If it just doesn't fit, work around it and don't bring it up again.

Oh and don't have a finite goal; ie. make sure all restrictions are flexible. If you're trying to brainstorm for a FPS but come up with a great 3rdPS, you shouldn't drop it because it's slightly different than your goal. (Unless you're being paid for a specific game to be developed, then you're kinda effed into doing what you're told.)

So yeah, have fun and don't stop others from having fun and you'll do fine.

but being negative is one of the worse and fastest ways to bring brainstorming to a halt.

Dave hit the nail right on the head with this statement. There will be plenty enough people later on who will tell you why your idea is bad, wrong, won't work, sucks, etc. Brainstorming isn't the time for bringing in the naysayer choir.

-Plenty of spitballing

-Plenty of pizza

-Plenty of fun and laughter

People who have the ability to get behind others' ideas with the same enthusiasm as they do their own, are the people I want in every brainstorming session.

• Make sure everyone in the group is able to participate in the session. It is very easy to have several more dominant personalities shutdown quieter ones.
• Naysayers are not necessarily a negative, but their points should be of a form to challenge an idea to react and expand to encompass the challenge with a variation on the idea that works.
• If someone gets singleminded on an idea to the detriment of a free-for-all meeting, give them the task of writing up a proposal of the idea after the meeting and move on from it.
• If you do not grasp an idea as in the speaker is not able to communicate it clearly but still feels there is something there, give them the task of writing up a proposal of the idea after the meeting and move on from it.
• If the group bogs down on exploring an idea with variations and thus free flow is affected, grab 2-3 active particpants of that idea, give them the task of writing up a proposal of the idea after the meeting and move on from it.
• Record your brainstorming session(s).
• There are a number of different brainstorming activities (trackable on the interwebs) that can be utilised to ensure people think outside the box.
• You should not restrict yourself to one brainstorming session if you can help it. Preferably one of the last brainstorming sessions will be utilised to examine the "written proposals" made from earlier sessions and ideas created based on them.
• You should ensure that you keep a file for the work product out of your brainstorming sessions as it is quite feasible that they may find life further down the road.
• Do not move on to new ideas so fast that your group feels pressured to create in order to meet a time crunch (unless their is really an issue of a time crunch like a game jam).
• Keep a set of challenges ready to use for when group creation slows too much For example: How would you make a 1st person clown shooter, what weapons would you use, would a cream pie thrown have a different result to that of a custard pie, can this be deveoped for an adult market as well as a kid's market. Or as another example: If you have to create a mutated human enemy what features should they have, how mutated can you get, why should the mutations look ugly?
• Above all else - know when to stop.