How to Moderate Online Brainstorming Sessions for Your Organization

Online brainstorming sessions are an essential tool for businesses that have implemented hybrid and work-from-home setups. This practice can help your company generate new ideas, solve problems, and make decisions, to give your organization a competitive edge and develop leaders.

A brainstorming session will usually be charged with creative energy and vulnerability since, essentially, people are sharing their ideas. Moderators will be tasked to create a safe and supportive environment while also taking steps to ensure that the discussion is productive, which can be challenging in an online space.

It’s true that two heads are better than one, but when it comes to online brainstorming sessions, there will likely be more than just two people in a room. While having more people to bounce ideas off can be a blessing, it can also be chaotic without a moderator to keep everyone on track and maximize its effectiveness.

Online brainstorming sessions can get a little hectic due to the lack of physical cues. It can also seem a little detached because you don’t get to see who you’re talking to in person, adding an extra layer of challenge for the moderator.

If you’re currently experiencing any of the challenges we mentioned above, then this guide may be just what you need to read to conduct online brainstorming sessions better for your organization. 

Benefits of Online Brainstorming

But before we give you some of our best tips and tricks for conducting brainstorming sessions better, let’s go through some of the benefits of this practice first.

1. Accessible

With over 99% of people wanting to have a hybrid setup, it can be difficult to coordinate everyone’s schedules to have them show up in the office at the same time. This can also be tricky if you have employees residing in different states or countries, or if you don’t have the space to conduct this kind of session.

Online brainstorming is the perfect solution for teams undergoing this problem because your team can easily enter the session – no matter where they may be as long as they have internet.

2. Recordable

When you and your team are shouting out ideas left and right, you may not have enough time to list all these ideas. Some software can record meetings, making it the perfect tool to use for online brainstorming sessions.

Recording brainstorming sessions can be a great way to review any ideas you may have dismissed earlier but found interesting after some reflection. A perfect documentation tool for ideas.

3. Comfortable

Online brainstorming sessions are ideal for maintaining productivity in work-from-home setups because they keep people’s creative and logical brains flowing. 

Of course, you should also not forget the comfort that this type of session provides for your team. Having an online brainstorming session reduces their worries because they’re comfortable in their homes. This means they have fewer things to think about so they can keep their focus on the brainstorming session at hand.

4. Insightful

Thanks to online brainstorming sessions, you can invite your team members stationed far away from your office. A great method to ensure that you give everyone in your company a platform to share their ideas regardless of their location.

How to Conduct an Online Brainstorming Session

Online brainstorming sessions can give your team numerous benefits. However, without the right practices, it may not be effective. 

Listed below are some tips and tricks to help you conduct an effective online brainstorming session.

1. Define goals

Before you schedule an online brainstorming session, it’s important to understand why you’re calling it and what you hope to gain from it.

Defining your goals is essential to knowing how you can conduct your online brainstorming session effectively.

2. Set an agenda

Once you’ve defined your goals, the next step is to set an agenda. This helps keep you and your team accountable for your time and enforces a deadline of when everyone should have their ideas ready.

As a moderator, it’s your responsibility to keep everyone on the agenda with respect for everyone’s time.

3. Coordinate schedules

One task often overlooked by moderators is that they must coordinate everyone’s schedules. Moderators must choose a time when everyone is free and when their brain is at its most active, which is usually in the morning.

Our brains are most active from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., which is why it’s best to schedule ideation meetings at this time. 

4. Use different tools

Online brainstorming sessions can be difficult to manage without the right tools. If it’s everyone just chatting or speaking out their ideas, it can be difficult to see the bigger picture. This is why it’s crucial to use tools and visual representations that can help keep these brainstorming sessions fruitful and engaging.

5. Set ground rules

Keeping an online brainstorming session’s flow can be summed up to the ground rules set. It can also keep the session safe and welcoming, ready for everyone to share their ideas without fear of judgment -because let’s face it, ideas can come from anywhere, and during brainstorming sessions, there should be no bad ideas.

Make it a point to set ground rules and acknowledge every idea. These practices can help create a culture of learning and development and yield a better company culture, where everyone feels like their suggestions matter.

6. Keep your cam on

While this isn’t a hard rule, it’s a great practice to do so. Keeping your camera on and encouraging others to do the same can help people gain that familiarity with one another.

It can also show people who share their ideas that people are listening and acknowledging their suggestions.

7. Follow up

Finally, when the online brainstorming session is done and it’s time to make plans, don’t forget to follow up on your team and check up on their experience.

Getting an online review about the session via a form or call can be a great indicator of how you can better moderate future brainstorming sessions. It can also nudge them to translate the ideas during the brainstorming session into action.

Making Online Brainstorming Sessions More Effective with Kanban

We hope that you learned how to create an effective brainstorming session. It can be tough moderating these sessions, but the results are worth it, especially if you’ve come up with a unique idea that’ll revolutionize things for your business.

But if you want to get those ideas from your brain to the screen, you want to make sure that you have software that will help you visualize these ideas. Ideally, a software that can be accessed by any of your authorized team members from wherever they may be, like what Kanban Zone offers.

Kanban Zone provides your team with a platform where they can collaborate to make your company better. Connecting your team in the digital space.

Take your brainstorming sessions to the next level with Kanban Zone. 

If you’re interested in knowing more about Kanban Zone, try it for FREE here!