Brainstorming Exercises

If you're trying to come up with ideas for a business, term paper, office presentation, or report, chances are you'll want to do a few brainstorming exercises to help you come up with ideas. Here are some suggestions for brainstorming that you may want to try that will help you to come up with more concepts for both creative and business projects.

First of all, you may want to simply write down the subject you are trying to write for, as well as any accompanying ideas you can think of. Don't worry about punctuation and correct spelling when you're in this stage of brainstorming; you can fix these errors later once you have some solid ideas.

You may also want to circle the central idea of your business plan or report, and create 'branches' for other ideas that stem from the circle. For instance, if you're writing a report on nutrition, you may want to make 'nutrition' the central theme, and the branches of the report could include titles like the food pyramid, daily intakes, foods that eliminate certain diseases and serving sizes.

You could also use the thesaurus or dictionary features on your software for brainstorming exercises. You can type in the word or phrase that is going to be the central theme of your report, and find similar words that may remind you of something else that you should include in your report. Flash cards are also a great brainstorming exercise; you can fill the cards out with themes or ideas, and use the remaining cards to write complimenting ideas for the words that you see.

Be sure to use your creative thinking skills when you're deciding on brainstorming exercises as well. Be sure to use your planning methods as a brainstorming tool while you're trying to come up with ways to structure your story, report, or presentation. This will help you to use all the resources you can before you are finished with the final product. Problem solving models and creative thinking models are also great places to get ideas for brainstorming exercises. Models such as Bloom's Creative Thinking Skills will teach you how to think unconventionally; factors like comprehension, knowledge, and evaluation will help you to think through your project without leaving any stones unturned, and you may also want to create formats and plans that will help you to organize your thoughts and goals for the project.

If you're looking for brainstorming exercises for a school report, you may want to ask your teacher or professor for brainstorming exercises that will help you to come up with the right types of ideas for a term paper, class/group project or report. You can also check out a few educational sites online for brainstorming exercises that you can copy from the Web to use in the future. You can also ask friends, classmates, and coworkers for brainstorming exercises that you may want to try in addition to the strategies that you've come up with on your own.