This Brainstorming Session Agenda will help you run productive and inclusive brainstorming sessions with your team. Curated by Shopify's Editor in Chief.
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.
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.
Shopify is a leading global commerce company, providing trusted tools to start, grow, market, and manage a retail business of any size. Shopify makes commerce better for everyone with a platform and services that are engineered for reliability, while delivering a better shopping experience for consumers everywhere. Shopify powers millions of businesses in more than 175 countries and is trusted by brands such as Allbirds, Gymshark, PepsiCo, Staples, and many more.
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VP of Customer Success, Motive
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Director of Sales, SurveyMonkey
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Co-founder, Time Doctor
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