Are you a person like us who breaks the head for creative ideas? It feels so strange when great work is being put up for your responsibility. We know how hard it is when there is no one to hear or ask your ideas. What is the solution? Brainstorming tools. But, what is brainstorming?
Brainstorming is defined as the collection of ideas and opinions on a single subject. Team collaboration, defence mechanism, adjusting to criticism are some of the statements that could be dealt with this topic. Brainstorming can illustrate your ideas into reality, and also helps you to learn what other people think of a particular perspective.
By the way, on reading this article, you will be able to
- Retrieve the benefits of brainstorming.
- Understand the values of online brainstorming tools.
- Identify which brainstorming technique is an exact match for you.
- Determine the best online brainstorming tools.
How brainstorming can benefit your work?
Fetching qualitative ideas can be prioritised over quantitative ideas. It is a well-known fact that each individual in this globe has a different perspective on a single object. Coming to the protagonist, brainstorming is an umbrella term that has various concepts to deal with. Most important vitality of brainstorming could depend upon the type of thinking either.
Brainstorming would never entertain defensiveness when these kinda situations happened. Whenever a contrast in the ideas occur, teammates can indulge in deeper analysis of each of the contrary ideas, getting down the pros and cons of each individual idea, evaluating the purpose with real-time instances could be a great deal. Many benefits are interrelated with brainstorming which could be discussed in the upcoming words.
- Jotting down ideas from various people of various mentalities.
- Helps to improve your analytics skills by involving deeper analysis.
- Literally saves your time and energy upon inventing a new solution.
- Quality of teamwork skills would be increased.
- Used to sort out the best and outdated ideas.
- Emergence of new ideas from existing ideas is stimulated in a brainstorming session.
- Able to fix any flaws in upcoming solution as well.
- Brainstorming makes your final product more effective with accommodation of ideas.
- 360-degree idea retrieval occurs.
- Thought process of the teammates increase dramatically.
- Decrypts the causes of the problem being discussed.
- Brainstorming demands instant ideas, that in turn make one answer all types of questions of the problem like “why”, “what”, “when”, “how”, “who” and “where.
Why should I prefer online brainstorming?
The AI system strikes the boundary of human thoughts that in turn produces quality tools to interact with one’s ideas. In a similar way, brainstorming doesn’t begs only paper sheets to store their valuable information.
It even extracts the benefit of technology to align the sophistication of idea-providers to blab their odd opinions. Online brainstorming tools, otherwise pronounced as brain netting, can be useful for the hosts to connect with various idea providers. Online brainstorming tools eradicate any geographical barriers. Furthermore, these online brainstorming tools could let them integrate with various other visual softwares to further strengthen your ideas.
The approaching phrases would elaborate the pros and cons of offline and online brainstorming tools, elucidating the value of the latter.
Offline brainstorming session
Pros
- Could be a one-to-one discussion
- No dependence on digital screens
- Feel the emotions of other members of the session.
Cons
- Cannot integrate with any visual and its benefits
- Defensive scenarios might occur
Online brainstorming tools
Pros
- Introverts’ buddy towards idea presentation
- Easy to collaborate with
- No geographical barriers
- Interaction with huge number of people
- Time saving
- Easy idea storage system when large amounts of ideas are being generated.
Cons
- Absence of the presence of other people might be a drawback
Common brainstorming techniques that only you should know
The common sequence in a brainstorming technique would run like this: Finding a problem or theme-defining many ideas to fix it-combining into a powerful solution. Retrieval of Ideas can be done in many ways. Consider this simple example on how brainstorming differs from person to person. “Don’t eat junk foods”- the most repetitive statement from your valuable elders.
But we don’t understand how the information impacts us until we face a problem. In a similar way, brainstorming grasps ideas with different tools. To be honest, ideas have multiple mothers to breed from, but still unacknowledged by many. It could be due to a monotonous way of analysing problems. The next session of this paragraph will demonstrate the variations of brainstorming sessions happening around this globe.
1. Figure storming
Thinking from another one’s perspective and issuing ideas from that person’s view.
2. Reverse brainstorming
Enables one to find the list of problems associated with the theme of the brainstorming session and try to find the cause of problems. It results in the discovery of new ideas.
3. Rapid ideation
Jotting down Ideas and discussing it individually.
4. SWOT Analysis
Digs the strength, weaknesses, opportunity, and threats of the theme and discuss accordingly.
5. Driver’s analysis
Similar to reverse brainstorming, Driver’s analysis helps to find the driving factors of the subject of the session and fetch all information regarding it.
6. The five whys
Asking questions repetitively beginning with “why”.
7. Brainwriting
Jot down the idea individually and share the information with each of them to analyse the pros and cons. It even benefits introverts to share and get feedback on their ideas as well.
8. Starbusting
Answering the questions beginning from ‘why’, ‘what’, ‘how’, ‘when’, ‘where’ about the subject of brainstorming.
9. Step ladder techniques
Once the team is being shared about the topic, everyone needs to leave the session except the two who first discuss among themselves regarding the topic. Then, another person comes in and shares ideas about the topic. By the same way, it happens and the best ideas will be filtered.
Top online brainstorming tools 2023
1. Coda
Contrary to specialised workflow solutions, Coda comes with a collection of strong building blocks, allowing you to construct the tools your team need. When teams expand or plans change, you can use Coda’s building elements to smoothly adapt your document, much like when a to-do list transforms into a lovely task board. With connected data, tables communicate with one another and edits appear everywhere. So that you can immediately sync updates, you can roll up your team’s strategy to an executive dashboard.
Features
- Project workback
- Meeting notes
- Project tracker
- OKR tracker
- Voting
Pricing
Starts free with in-app purchases
- Pro=$10 per month
- Team= $30 per month
- Enterprise= Custom sales
2. Ideanote
With a long-awaited integrations marketplace that connects many other apps. Ideanote is at last opening up the world. Automate the tedious tasks in a matter of seconds to boost creativity and hasten the adoption of the best solutions. From the start, keep tabs on the development of your innovation-driven growth. With a built-in advanced analytics dashboard, you can simply identify leading innovators, monitor your influence, and share the results of your innovation efforts. Organize and prioritise ideas as they pass through your fully configurable funnel. Then, execute the finest ones.
Features
- Idea collection templates
- Shareable links
- Idea widget
- Cover images
- Anonymity
Pricing
Starts free with in-app purchases
- Business= $49 per month
- enterprise= Contact sales
3. Aha
Encourage your community to comment and vote on the product concepts they find most appealing. To gather suggestions while users are actively using your product, provide a feedback widget in the app. Review, arrange, and score ideas to identify the ones that are most beneficial. By using proxy voting, encourage the sales and support personnel to share ideas that customers demand. Empathy sessions can be held to bring individuals together for online discussions. In order to fully get what your customers need and why gather qualitative and quantitative information.
Features
- Polls
- Record sessions
- CSV importation
- Feedback polls
- Proxy voting
Pricing
- Essentials= $39 per month
- Advanced= $59 per month
4. Xmind
Everyone has the capacity to inspire creativity and construct mind maps for practically anything thanks to the non-linear nature of mind maps and Xmind’s intuitive features. In particular, for complicated challenges or huge projects, a clever integration of multiple structures on the same branch makes your mind map more cohesive and balanced. Pitching ideas is made simple with useful layouts and automatically generated seamless transitions. ZEN Mode enables you to stay focused on a single mind map, block out distractions, and work more efficiently.
Features
- Presenter view
- Audio notes
- Tree table structure
- Logic chart
- Brace map
Pricing
- All platforms= $59.99 per month
- Academia= $39.99 per month
- Team plan= contact sales team.
- Enterprise= contact sales team
- NGO/NPO/Governmental= $41.99 per month
5. Wisemapping
Wise mapping excels in teamwork, collaborative planning, individual note-taking, and classroom settings. Wise mapping is an open source web mind mapping solution that combines open standards technology like SVG and Reacts with the effectiveness of mind maps.
Features
- Embedding feature
- Collaboration
- Exportation of PVG,SNG, and JPG
- Integration with linking facility
- Open source software
Pricing
Starts free with in-app purchases.
6. Lucidcharts
The intelligent diagramming tool Lucidchart brings people together to develop the future and make smarter decisions. Teams and individuals may quickly and easily sketch out where they are, what they need, and what comes next. Quickly picture the organisational structure, processes, and systems used by your team. Intelligent diagramming enables you to more quickly, clearly, and jointly visualise difficult ideas.
Features
- Optimize business processes.
- Visualize technical systems.
- Brainstorm with remote teams.
- Design a superior user experience.
- Plan and deploy new features faster.
Pricing
Starts free with in-app purchases
- Individual= $7.95 per month
- Teams= $9.00 per month
- Enterprise= contact sales
7. Mindmeister
The main concept should be the focal point of your mind map when you first begin. Create as many subtopics as you like, then explore them while using colour code to add style and clarity. Add context to issues as your map takes shape by including attachments, embedded media, and more. The features of MindMeister lead you from your initial thought maps to maximum creativity. Making beautiful mind maps is simple with MindMeister. You may rapidly and artistically map your important ideas with your team using our user-friendly editor. Set your group’s collaborative creativity free and make amazing mind maps for everything from project planning to brainstorming to meeting management.
Features
- Integration
- Secure privacy protections
- Map layouts
- Easy export and sharing
- Custom style of themes
Pricing
Starts free with in-app purchases
- Personal= $2.49 per month
- Pro= $4.19 per month
- Business= $6.29 per month
8. Scapple
Scapple is a digital piece of paper that enables you to take notes wherever you are and connect them with arrows or lines. Any way you wish, connect your thoughts. Every note in Scapple is equal, therefore you can choose which notes have connections and which don’t at your discretion. You are allowed to try out different arrangements of your thoughts.
Features
- Full-screen mode
- Drag and drop functionality to connect ideas
- Stack notes column
Pricing
Starts from $16.47 per month
9. Bubbl.us
Visually organising your thoughts in a way that makes sense to you and others is simple with Bubbl.us. This tool is made to keep you focused and swiftly record your thoughts. Bubbl.us is used daily by thousands of individuals to take notes, discuss ideas, collaborate, and deliver information more effectively. Avoiding distractions is one of the most crucial things to do while brainstorming. By limiting the number of buttons that are visible as you work, this user interface is intended to assist you in maintaining your attention on your task.
Features
- One-click presentation
- Browser based
- Distraction free editing
- Easy sharing
- JPG and PNG supporting files
Pricing
Starts free with in-app purchases
- Premium= $4.91 per month
- Team= $59 per year per 3 members
The Bottom line
We think that this article would provide you valuable information regarding the parent term of idea collection – Brainstorming tools. Specifically, when talking about online brainstorming tools, they provide much sophisticated ways to produce your ideas. This article wouldn’t guarantee you that online brainstorming tools can help you to produce quality ideas and pull your ideas in the vision of many people. The quality of ideas purely depends upon the producers – YOU. Online brainstorming tools serve as a medium to communicate ideas.
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