Brainstorming Session Agenda by Shopify

What’s inside this Brainstorming Session Agenda :

1 👤Meeting roles

List the meeting attendees and their respective responsibilities:

• Facilitator
• Decision-maker
• Stakeholders
• Note-taker

2 🧊Icebreakers

If not everyone in the room knows each other, be sure to do a round of introductions off the top.

3 🤝Rules of engagement

These ground rules should be determined as a group and outline how everyone agrees to behave. Examples of brainstorming rules could include:

• No idea is stupid!
• Postpone criticism
• Focus on the problem
• Make sure you’re not cutting anyone off

4 🤔How might we…

Begin with a “How might we…” exercise, where you ask people to come up with the questions that will determine the focus of the actual brainstorm session.

5 💭Solo brainstorm

Each individual writes down all of their ideas for approximately 3 minutes.

As people are jotting down their ideas, the facilitator can start grouping them into themes.

6 👍Voting

The facilitator can instruct everyone to vote on their favourite ideas. 

• Pro tip: use emoji reactions in Fellow as a voting tool

7 🍔Break

After all of your ideas are written on the note and everyone has placed their votes, it’s time to start thinking about taking action.

Note that before jumping into this portion of the brainstorm, you’ll likely want to give the group a comfort break — time for lunch, a stretch, or a snack.

8 🚀Group brainstorm

When the top priority ideas have been voted upon, it’s time to decide how to take action. Here are two questions the group should determine before leaving the room:

• What is our deadline? 
• Who will own this? 

9 ✅Follow-through

Designate a cadence to check in on each of your action items’ champions and send out a survey following the brainstorm to collect feedback on the session.