[milesvp]

>Brainstorming has become a heuristic, an attempted shortcut, a lossy substitution for psychological safety.

I'm glad this was where the author ended up. As I read this, I kept thinking that I know how to get better ideas out of people than a lot of typical brainstorming scenarios I've experienced in the past. My mind kept going back to how good some of the (Agile) retros I've had, and the one thing they all had in common was psychological safety was key. Creating a safe space allowed people to really express their issues, which made it much easier to address them. I've always understood one of the most important actions in a brainstorming session is the "turkey shoot" by one of the seniors. It's an idea so bad that even interns think, oh, my idea is better than that and so find it easier to participate. Without that, you can very much end up with a session dominated by hierarchy.

[_djo_]

Can you explain more about the 'turkey shoot' in brainstorming sessions, and the value it adds? It's not something I've heard about before.

[forbiddenvoid]

It's basically just throwing an idea out there that's so bad it's easy to shoot down (like turkeys which are notoriously easy to shoot).

The value is creating space where the bar for acceptable ideas is so low that people don't self-censor.

[_djo_]

Thank you.

[Jtsummers]

Another term that may be more familiar is "ice breaker". The senior person offers up an idea to get the ball rolling. It shouldn't be too complex, it shouldn't sound like the way to go. It's just something to help make other people more comfortable participating, especially people junior to them. It may even be a dumb idea, getting some laughs and breaking the tension.

[_djo_]

Ah, yeah, that’s the term I’m more familiar with. Thank you.