Meet brainwriting, brainstorming’s more inclusive cousin

Love it or loathe it, brainstorming is a great way to collaborate and share ideas. But it’s not for everyone. In fact, for some people, it doesn’t work at all. 

For quiet folk, voicing ideas when louder members are in transmit mode is a challenge. Meanwhile slow thinkers, who tend to come up with better solutions, often struggle with the rapid-fire nature of brainstorming sessions. And neurodivergent people often struggle with the sensory overload that comes from boisterous, chaotic group environments. 

We already know that companies that are diverse in terms of ethnicity and gender outperform their less diverse peers by around 30-50%. But there are similar figures to support cognitive diversity, too. 

• Deloitte found a 30% Improvement in risk identification and a 20% boost in problem-solving if the team is cognitively diverse.
• According to a recent survey by TextHelp, an assistive technology provider, companies that establish a neuro-inclusive culture have 28% higher revenues, double net income, and 30% higher profit margins.

So the bottom line is this. If brainstorming is your go-to when it comes to problem-solving and ideation, you could be missing out. Luckily, there’s an alternative called brainwriting that’s a lot more inclusive. Let’s take a closer look!

What is brainwriting?

Brainwriting was invented by German marketing expert Bernd Rohrbach in 1969. The idea is this. Instead of gathering in a room and shouting out ideas, you write them down silently. 

This gives everyone equal opportunity to participate while removing many of the barriers that get in the way of introverted or neurodiverse people contributing. Think of it as being like a mind-mapping session, with a brainstorming evaluation phase thrown in at the end. 

Here’s how it typically works:

1. Setup: A group of people (usually 4-6) gets together, and the team leader articulates a problem or challenge. 
2. Idea generation: Each attendee writes down one or more ideas related to the problem on a piece of paper (or virtual whiteboard). They do this silently. You can play music while you do this — just make sure it won’t throw anyone off their concentration. 
3. Sharing: After a set time (usually 5-10 minutes), participants pass their written ideas to the person next to them.
4. Building on ideas: Each person reads the ideas and adds new ones or builds on the existing suggestions. This continues for several rounds.
5. Review: At the end of the exercise, the group reviews and evaluates all the ideas, narrowing down the selection. 

What’s the difference between brainstorming and brainwriting?

There are four main differences between these two related but ultimately different approaches. 

1. How ideas are shared
   • In brainstorming, people speak their ideas out loud in a group.
   • In brainwriting, people write their ideas down silently.
     
2. Interaction
   • In brainstorming, everyone talks and interacts, which can lead to discussions or interruptions.
   • In brainwriting, people work quietly, so there’s no talking or interruptions during the idea generation phase. Chatting comes later on.
     
3. Participation
   • In brainstorming, louder people might dominate the session while quieter or more reserved folk take a back seat. 
   • In brainwriting, everyone gets an equal chance to contribute because everyone writes in silence.
     
4. Time to think
   • In brainstorming, people share ideas quickly without much time to reflect.
   • In brainwriting, participants have more time to think carefully about their ideas.

What are the benefits of brainwriting? 

It’s ideal for teams that want all the benefits of brainstorming (creative, rapid-fire ideas) with the added benefit of diversity that comes from better inclusion. Its biggest advantage is that it gives everyone a chance to share their thoughts, which means more engagement.

The silent nature of the activity also gives participants time to reflect without being interrupted or influenced by what others are saying. This can lead to more original ideas rather than quick surface-level suggestions. That’s not to say you don’t get to bounce ideas around — that’s built into the process too, which we’ll talk more about later. 

Brainwriting also reduces group pressure. In a typical brainstorming session, people might feel anxious about voicing their wilder ideas, especially if they worry about being judged. Writing in silence, or even anonymously, helps people feel more comfortable expressing their thoughts.

Finally, brainwriting can generate a greater variety of ideas. More people get a chance to share, and when participants see what others have written, they can build on those thoughts or think of new ones inspired by them. This creates a snowball effect, where ideas keep growing and improving with each round.

Here’s a summary:

• Everyone gets a chance to share their ideas equally.
• Allows participants to think carefully and come up with more thoughtful ideas.
• Reduces group pressure by letting people contribute silently and/or anonymously.
• Prevents dominant personalities from taking over the session.
• Encourages a greater variety of ideas by allowing participants to build on each other’s thoughts.
• Creates a more inclusive and comfortable environment for all team members.
• Helps generate creative and detailed solutions to problems.

4 types of brainwriting to try 

If you want a little more structure to the exercise, give one of these approaches a try.  

1. 6-3-5 Brainwriting

This is one of the most popular methods. It works like this:

• Six people take part.
• Each person writes down three ideas in five minutes.
• After five minutes, they pass their paper to the next person.
• The next person reads the ideas and adds three new ones.
• This goes on for several rounds, creating many ideas in a short time.

Top tip: If you have close to six people, then just stick to the three ideas in the five-minute format. If you have fewer, then you might want to write four or five ideas each. If you have more than six, consider asking for one or two ideas per person so you’re not overwhelmed, time-wise. 

2. Anonymous brainwriting

In this approach, participants write their ideas anonymously. The benefit here is the shier members of the group feel empowered to voice their thoughts. But also, let’s be honest — shy or not, it’s not easy to voice wild ideas in front of the boss. This makes it easier for everyone, including the confident ones. Here’s how to do it:

• Everyone writes down ideas without putting their name on the paper.
• The ideas are collected and shared with the group to review later. 
• This helps people feel safe sharing creative or unusual ideas without fear of judgment.

Top tip: People need to feel safe and relaxed if they’re going to share their wildcard ideas. Make sure you have a culture of openness and trust before getting started with this one — it’s the only way to guarantee you’ll get the most out of everyone. 

3. Online brainwriting

This version happens online using digital tools, like virtual whiteboards.

• Participants type their ideas into a shared document (Google Docs, for example), a virtual whiteboard, or a chat app. 
• Others can see the ideas and add new ones or build on them.
• It works well for remote teams or when people cannot meet in person.

Top tip(s): Making this an anonymous version of brainwriting is tricky but possible. Consider setting up a dedicated anon account in Gmail or on your chat app or whiteboard tool and giving team members access to it at set times. The document fills up with ideas, and no one knows who wrote them! 

Alternatively, let the team go wild in the doc without managerial supervision. Once you’re done, ask one person to collate the list and remove identifiers. Share with the boss, then analyze it all together.

Often it’s managers who add a layer of intimidation to ideation sessions, so cutting them out of the equation should go some way to soothing people’s stage fright. Sorry bosses, but you can cramp peoples’ style. 

4. Brainwriting pool

In this method, there’s a central “pool” for ideas to be collected.

• Everyone writes down ideas and places them in the pool (e.g., a box or shared file).
• Other participants pick an idea from the pool and expand on it.
• This continues until the group has enough ideas to review.

Top tip: This one’s great for remote teams because it’s easy to do asynchronously. This means people can add ideas whenever they’re online, whatever their timezone. Even if you’re all located together, we all tend to have mental peaks at different times, so this allows everyone to contribute when they’re mentally revved up. 

Digital tools make brainwriting a breeze 

Whether you’re a UX team improving a website or an entrepreneur plotting your next big idea, brainwriting is one of the best ways to generate a broad range of solutions. Digital tools are great for the job because they make it easy to organize and share ideas. And when collaboration is the name of the game, the easier it is, the better. 

With Cacoo, teams can log in wherever they are, share ideas, and then group them into related thoughts with lines. This makes it easier to see patterns and build on ideas. Digital diagrams also make it simple to edit, move, or add ideas without losing anything. Plus, because it’s cloud-based, teams can work together in real-time, even if they’re in different places, making the process more flexible than ever. Try it for free today!