The best visual brainstorming techniques
In visual brainstorming, the saying “two heads are better than one” becomes “two pairs of eyes can spark even better ideas.” This method taps into the power of visuals to support problem-solving, bringing teams together and leading to innovative solutions.
Whether your team needs to develop ideas for a new marketing campaign, a product design, or a sales promotion, take advantage of visual brainstorming techniques to make the creative process more efficient and collaborative.
In this guide, we put together the best techniques for getting started and ideas for running brainstorming sessions that address your specific business challenges.
What does visual brainstorming stand for?
Visual brainstorming is a creative problem-solving approach that uses visual elements and techniques to generate, organize, and refine ideas. You can add images, diagrams, sketches, and other visual aids to identify connections between ideas and structure your thoughts more effectively.
Visual brainstorms can help any team tackle challenges creatively. You can use them to:
- Create new product features in software engineering
- Discuss and draw out design solutions
- Encourage participation in a human resources workshop
- Clarify relationships and dependencies in a strategic plan
- Enhance understanding during training and education events
- Bridge gaps in projects involving multiple departments
Top 8 techniques to make your visual brainstorm effective
Visual brainstorming can be challenging without support. Distributed workforces in particular demand tools that enable remote collaboration in real time. Teams with introverted members also need best practices to include those who don’t feel comfortable asking to speak. These are just a few of the reasons to use visual brainstorming techniques.
- Mind mapping
Mind mapping is a visual representation of ideas branching out from a central theme. You can use a brainstorm map maker to add a main concept in the center — for example, “tactics to increase leads” — and invite your sales team to share their ideas. With these thoughts, you draw branches, including related insights, subtopics, or supporting details.
This brainstorming technique helps organize thoughts and explore relationships between ideas. The sales team in this example could visualize that certain tactics work well together and even rank those with higher potential directly on the map.
Remember that mind maps can become cluttered if you add too many branches. Keep your maps organized and clear, using them as a starting point for idea generation.
- Storyboarding
Storyboarding involves creating a sequence of visuals that represent a narrative. Just like in the process of sketching out movie scenes, participants create steps, usually in a linear format, to illustrate how a concept unfolds over time.
In its classic form, this technique involves drawing; however, with a virtual whiteboard, you can add digital images to illustrate the sequence of events or messages. It’s one of the best brainstorming exercises for media and entertainment companies to plan their campaigns, events, and experiences, helping visualize the flow of ideas and actions. But other kinds of organizations can also benefit from a storyboarding technique, too — for instance, with marketing efforts.
- Starbursting
Starbursting is a collaborative brainstorming technique that focuses on generating questions around a central idea. Picture a six-pointed star where each point represents a brainstorming question: who, what, when, where, why, and how. These questions encourage critical thinking and thorough exploration, considering all perspectives of a concept.
For example, when launching a new product campaign, a retail company can use starbursting to address questions like:
- Who is the target customer for this product?
- What promotional tactics will be most effective in attracting customers?
- When should the campaign launch to align with peak shopping times?
- Where will the product be displayed in-store and online?
- Why should customers choose this product over competitors’ offerings?
- How will we measure the success of the campaign in terms of sales and customer engagement?
Product developers or project planners can benefit from this technique, too. But keep in mind that some groups of people prefer generating solutions to discussing questions. Emphasize that this method serves as a kickstart for idea generation.
- Flowcharting
Teams mapping out processes and designing workflows should integrate flowcharts into their creative practices. This technique uses standardized symbols and arrows to represent processes visually. Each step is connected, showing how one action leads to the next.
You can use flowcharting to clarify roles and responsibilities in a project, identify operational bottlenecks, and discuss the implementation of automated workflows.
- SWOT analysis
A SWOT analysis identifies strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats related to a project, company, or idea. Each letter represents a quadrant that you fill in through discussion and visual representation. This technique helps you assess internal and external factors impacting your goals.
One limitation of this technique is the potential for bias — the results vary depending on the team members involved and their perspectives. To address this problem, involve diverse participants and gather insights from different departments and stakeholders.
- Customer journey mapping
Teams in marketing, sales, and product development use customer journey mapping to visualize the customer experience from awareness to post-purchase. By understanding your audience’s touchpoints, emotions, and potential pain points, you can brainstorm ideas to enhance engagement, streamline processes, and address customer concerns effectively.
To visually document your creative ideas, consider using specific brainstorming templates for customer journey mapping. They typically include:
- Stages of the journey: Use the stages of the sales funnel — awareness, consideration, purchase, retention, and advocacy — as columns in your diagram
- Emotions and reactions: Add rows for noting customer feelings, pain points, and motivations throughout the journey, helping to identify areas for improvement
- Needs and goals: Leave space to capture what customers are trying to achieve or solve at each stage of the journey
- User actions: Keep a record of what actions customers take at each stage, such as browsing products, asking for help, or making a purchase
- Brainstorming with sticky notes
Originally created as an in-person practice, this technique can also support your online brainstorming sessions. Using visual collaboration tools, you can share a virtual whiteboard with your participants and encourage them to place ideas on the board using virtual sticky notes.
This is one of the most versatile methods on this list, as it can be integrated with techniques like round-robin brainstorming and reverse brainstorming. If you’re attached to traditional methods, sticky notes can make them more collaborative, allowing even introverted team members to participate.
Inspire your group to generate as many ideas as possible, but remember that every brainstorming session needs a clear focus to stay productive and aligned with your goals.
- Brainwriting with visuals
Brainwriting involves participants jotting down their ideas on a virtual canvas, where others can review and expand on them using images, shapes, sticky notes, and connectors. While this technique might not provide immediate feedback, it gives participants the time to reflect, leading to more thoughtful and well-developed ideas. You can use brainwriting to overcome the pressure of verbal communication, giving all participants an equal opportunity to contribute.
How to make the most of your brainstorming techniques
With these techniques in mind, it’s time to structure your creative session. Follow these best practices to facilitate visual brainstorming, whether your team works in the same room or collaborates remotely.
Combine visual brainstorming methods
Integrating visual brainstorming techniques — such as expanding ideas from brainwriting into a storyboard — fosters a more inclusive and creative work environment. By considering different thinking styles, you allow participants to express themselves through multiple formats, enhancing engagement and the overall quality of ideas.
The LIONS State of Creativity 2024 shows that 82% of marketing and creative professionals consider fostering the confidence to share ideas one of the best practices for elevating the quality of their work. Try visual brainstorming tools that offer template options to combine different techniques into a single virtual workspace.
Use built-in brainstorming collaboration tools
According to Asana’s State of Collaboration Technology, knowledge workers spend an average of 57 minutes every day switching between collaboration tools. To make the most of your time and resources, create and organize your ideas in a single platform where brainstorming collaboration tools are built in, so you streamline your creative process. Having one platform is especially handy in collaborative workspaces where teams use multiple apps at the same time.
Level up your collaborative brainstorming with Box Canvas
From initial brainstorming to final project documentation, Box empowers you to manage the whole content lifecycle on one single platform. The Intelligent Content Cloud offers document creation, storage, sharing, e-signature, and more.
Combine your favorite visual brainstorming techniques into a secure virtual whiteboard with Box Canvas. Run creative sessions from anywhere, add templates to simplify collaboration, and drive engagement with sticky notes, voting, chat, and more.
Looking for the best visual brainstorming software? Let’s connect.
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