Brainstorming in meetings practice

Brainstorming in meetings practice

Work in groups of three or four, pretending that you work in the same department/ same section of the same company. For each discussion, choose one topic below, brainstorm as many possible ideas as you can, then choose the best idea(s). You can change the section/ department that you imagine you all work for each time if that makes the discussion easier.

• Cutting costs
• Cutting overtime
• Cutting stress
• Cutting travel time
• Decreasing staff turnover (= Making staff stay in the company longer/ Stopping people quitting)
• Expanding market share
• Finding out what customers really think/ really want
• Getting more people to apply for positions in your company
• Improving brand recognition
• Improving cooperation between departments/ between group companies
• Improving efficiency
• Improving job satisfaction
• Improving foreign language skills
• Improving staff mental health and/ or physical health
• Improving staff performance
• Improving the premises/ facilities
• Improving work life balance
• More diversity
• New products/ services/ areas of business
• Reducing customer complaints
• Reducing time spent on…
• Relationship building/ Team building

Discuss how your brainstorming and discussion could have been improved, then do the same brainstorming then choosing in a meeting stages with at least one more topic above.

Present your best idea(s) to another group and see if they can come up with any better suggestions.

Ask about any topics above which you can’t understand, can’t think of any good ideas for, etc, brainstorming and discussing together as a class each time.

Discuss good ways of brainstorming as a class.

Brainstorm suitable phrases for brainstorming in meetings in English (“Do you have any other ideas?”, etc).

Change groups and do something similar for things that you might really need to brainstorm in your own future meetings.