Lean Canvas Business Model: What It Is + How to Create One
Ninety percent of executives recognize that innovation is integral to business growth.
But innovation doesn’t come easy. That's where brainstorming shines—it can produce creative ideas, address challenges and supercharge business success.
Brainstorming templates provide you and your team with a pre-made framework and guidelines to work with so you don’t have to start from scratch.
Not sure how to make the most of brainstorming templates? We’re here to help.
This article is packed with stunning brainstorming templates, techniques and proven strategies to keep your business moving ahead.
Let’s dive in!
Brainstorming templates are frameworks that help record, analyze, evaluate and synthesize information during a brainstorming session. Rather than starting from a blank canvas, these provide a structured way for teams or individuals to generate ideas—with a specific problem or challenge at its core.
Brainstorming templates can come in different forms, including workflows, mind maps, concept maps, whiteboards, etc. Visme offers thousands of templates you can use for brainstorming sessions of all kinds. However, your choice of brainstorming session templates depends on the technique or what you're brainstorming on.
Watch the video below and discover how Visme's whiteboard software helps you collaborate faster and brainstorm better than ever before.
There’s so much you can do to unlock the power of brainstorming—it's a tool that can lead to increased creativity, problem-solving, and idea generation. Below are some widely used techniques for brainstorming.
Step ladder brainstorming is a method that ensures all team members have an opportunity to contribute their ideas without being influenced or overshadowed by dominant personalities.
This technique involves adding participants, one at a time, to the discussion.
The process starts with a core group, usually two people, discussing an idea or problem. As they talk, one new member joins the group at a time, contributing fresh insights before knowing what's being discussed. This cycle continues until all members are involved.
It's best in scenarios where there is a need for equal participation and to prevent groupthink. Get started with a step ladder brainstorming whiteboard template.
Mind mapping is a visual brainstorming technique that helps structure information, helping you better analyze, comprehend and generate new ideas.
To start, you write a central concept on a board or paper and draw branches to various ideas that relate to it, forming a spider-like structure of nodes.
Each branch you generate can lead to further sub-branches, creating a sprawling and interconnected map of thoughts and concepts.
This method encourages a free flow of ideas, making it easier to identify relationships and patterns.
Mind mapping can be effective for complex problems where relationships between different subjects or topics are not apparent.
Get started with a mind-mapping template here.
Starbursting is an exploratory technique focused on generating questions rather than answers.
It utilizes a six-pointed star shape to organize questions around the what, who, when, where, why and how of an idea or challenge.
Each point of the star represents one of these critical thinking areas.
The process encourages team members or individuals to fully explore various aspects of an issue by formulating as many questions as possible in each category.
This exhaustive questioning helps to uncover potential challenges and opportunities before getting to the solution part.
Starbursting works great as a product brainstorming template where thorough analysis is key and assumptions have not been challenged. Use this ready-made starbursting template to get started.
SWOT analysis makes for a perfect strategic plan template as it is used to evaluate the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats involved in a project or business venture.
Each category forms a quadrant, which can be examined separately.
Strengths and weaknesses are typically considered internal factors, controllable by the organization. On the contrary, opportunities and threats usually represent external elements. This includes but is not limited to market trends and competitors.
It is best applied in initial planning phases or when making decisions about future strategies, particularly for comparing the competitive position or market growth. Use this SWOT analysis generator as a writing brainstorming template and edit it online.
The Six Thinking Hats is a method devised by Edward de Bono that encourages a range of different approaches (or 'hats') during discussions or problem-solving sessions.
Each hat represents a different perspective, such as facts, emotions, caution, creativity, management and optimism.
Participants rotate through wearing these metaphorical hats, allowing them to explore different facets of a problem and to see things in a new light.
This technique promotes parallel thinking and can help reduce confrontation and improve productivity as it removes ego from the decision-making process.
Reverse brainstorming is a creative problem-solving method where you start by identifying everything that could go wrong—or considering negative outcomes instead of positive ones.
The idea is to deliberately think in reverse. Rather than finding direct solutions to the problem at hand, participants brainstorm all the ways to cause the problem or worsen it.
This approach is effective when a team is stuck on a problem and traditional brainstorming fails to generate results.
It can also provoke innovative thinking by examining issues from an entirely different angle.
Once all the potential issues or failures are listed, the process is reversed to consider how to avoid or mitigate these problems, leading to unconventional and unexpected solutions. Get started with a reverse brainstorming template.
While this is not an exhaustive list, other types of techniques like round-robin brainstorming, reverse brainstorming, gap-filling and rapid ideation are popular as well.
Ready to get started with brainstorming? Visme has hundreds of customizable templates to facilitate a brainstorming session. Whether you need a SWOT analysis template, a mind map, or a venn diagram template, there's something to suit every need.
From weekly team sync-ups to company-wide meetings, ensuring you have a structured agenda is a must for productive discussion. This template allows teams to set meeting objectives, assign action items and create a schedule. Not only does it keep the meeting on track, but it fosters better engagement and makes follow-ups easier to manage.
Visme’s collaboration features come as a cherry on top. With this, the team members can tag each other, leave comments, assign tasks and make changes to the whiteboard.
Looking to launch a product with both free and premium offerings? This template guides you through designing the freemium model for your business.
Understanding customer value is crucial and this whiteboard layout helps map out the different tiers of user access, potential upgrades and incentives for embracing the premium version.
With Visme’s AI document generator, you can convert the information from the template into actionable presentations for stakeholder meetings or investor pitches. No need to juggle different software or tools.
If you are a furniture retailer looking to map out your showroom layout or improve your customer flow, this template is perfect. Use it to plan floor layouts, feature displays, and customer pathways, optimizing the shopping experience while also highlighting promotions or new collections.
Add Visme’s icons, stock photos and videos to personalize and visualize different areas of your store. The drag-and-drop editor enables you to easily change elements as your design changes or as new trends emerge.
Whether you are a startup or an established enterprise, defining and tracking your OKRs is a must.
This sleek-looking template can be used to pinpoint primary goals and measurable results. Other use cases include: checking in on progress, celebrating wins and adjusting strategies where necessary.
With Visme’s analytics feature, you can monitor how often the whiteboard is viewed and which parts of the whiteboard your team interacts with the most. This insight allows for data-driven decision-making and leads to future improvements.
New beginnings are exciting, but the planning part can feel like a challenge. That's when this template comes in handy.
This project brainstorming template helps set the tone for a project's lifecycle, walking you through setting clear goals, defining project scope and outlining responsibilities right at the onset.
The best part? Visme's integration feature enables you to link this template to third-party tools for increased productivity during your brainstorming session.
For instance, you can quickly post your whiteboard to Slack and Monday.com from within the Visme interface. Or, integrate your table with Google Sheets or Microsoft Excel for live data.
Looking to streamline your manufacturing process or establish a new product line? This modern template helps you to map out the value chain, examine resource allocation and optimize efficiencies at each stage of production.
Use this to identify key elements like suppliers, production steps and distribution channels.
Personalize it further with Visme’s Brand Wizard, which lets you upload your company logo and apply your brand colors in just a few clicks so that your corporate identity is consistent.
Looking to sift through complex planning and service delivery? This strategic whiteboard template for brainstorming is perfect for healthcare facilities.
Whether for small clinics or large hospitals, it helps in laying out organizational strategies that align with patient care goals and compliance standards. Utilize this to determine critical paths for patient services, process improvements, or budget constraints.
Brainstorming is more of a collaborative activity! And the Visme Workflow tool takes task management to a whole new level. You can easily keep track of roles, tasks, progress, deadlines and corrections, all in one location.
Whether you are introducing a new product or refining marketing strategies for an existing one, understanding your audience is essential.
This customer persona template allows teams to compile and visualize information about target demographics, including behavior patterns, pain points and purchasing power.
Add sticky notes, comments, or images directly to your persona board to track ideas or changes without hassles.
As the plant-based market continues to grow, it's critical to identify strategic moves that will put your product ahead of the competition.
This whiteboard template is perfect for brainstorming product development, marketing strategies and distribution channels specific to the plant-based industry.
Use Visme's AI Writer tool to get smart suggestions in wording your unique value propositions, making your planning session as productive as it can be.
The electric vehicle (EV) industry is booming with innovation, and this template puts you in the driver's seat. Imagine being able to visualize all the challenges and opportunities in the EV industry. Whether it is battery technology breakthroughs or evolving consumer preferences, each aspect can be captured effortlessly.
With Visme's AI Image Generator, you can create visuals for whiteboard presentations. Just type a description, such as "futuristic electric cars" or "distribution networks," and the tool will generate custom images.
No matter the industry you're in; keeping every aspect of your business in harmony is essential for success. This brainstorming session template is a strategic planning tool that lets you track your organization's key performance indicators (KPIs).
With Visme, you can enhance the template by sprinkling in appealing icons or striking stock photos and videos, ensuring your scorecard is not only informative but also pleasing to the eye. Or you can use interactive features like linking slides and pages or adding content blocks to make it more immersive.
Designed specifically for agile teams, this brainstorming chart template helps establish clear team norms and expectations. It has interactive sections for team roles, commitments and sprint goals that help with decision-making.
Packed with a clean-cut, professional design, it helps team members get a bird’s eye view of their tasks. Dedicated sections for discussion points and action items ensure that meetings are well-coordinated, leading to efficient sprints.
Leverage Visme’s collaboration design features, like live editing, to make the most of your session.
In this section, we discuss brainstorming strategies to make sure that your sessions are on-point and productive.
Effective brainstorming sessions don't happen by accident; they require preparation.
One method is setting a clear agenda with prioritized topics.
Take Google, for instance, which implements a 20% time concept where employees spend a portion of their time exploring new ideas related to the company's goals.
Before meetings, Google encourages employees to list potential projects to tackle during this time.
When you create an agenda encompassing these ideas, participants come ready to dive into specifics instead of generic ideas that may not lead to actionable outcomes.
Another example is Amazon's "working backward" approach, where any new idea starts with drafting a future press release. This helps with a clear vision and centers the brainstorming around what matters most—customer results.
Inquiring the right questions is indispensable for productive brainstorming.
Thought-provoking queries can incite deeper thinking and unveil innovative solutions that wouldn't have surfaced otherwise.
It's essential to question assumptions and explore different angles. Start by asking: ‘What if?’ or ‘How might we?’
These prompts encourage creative thinking and open-mindedness. Ultimately it's the questions we ask that shape the ideas that follow.
Facilitators should aim to create an environment where every participant feels comfortable voicing their thoughts.
This means encouraging effort, no matter how unconventional the idea may seem at first glance.
Think back to the times when a junior team member sat in silence while senior staff dominated the conversation.
Hierarchies can stifle brainstorming because people may hold back their ideas for fear of judgment or looking uninformed in front of authority figures.
To combat this, it's useful to establish ground rules that put everyone on an even playing field.
Emphasize that all ideas are welcome and valuable and that critique should be saved for later stages of the evaluation process.
Anonymity can be another powerful tool. Allowing team members to submit their ideas anonymously can reduce the fear of judgment and level the hierarchical field, ensuring the sessions are dominated by ideas, not titles.
Up to 90% of all the information transmitted to the brain is visual.
Visual brainstorming tools such as whiteboards or sticky notes can be game changers.
They enable participants to see the discussion evolve as thoughts spring up and are mapped out in real time.
Being able to connect the dots between ideas visually fosters a deeper understanding and can promote the synthesis of new concepts.
This approach engages different forms of cognitive processing, which can be particularly effective in collaborative scenarios. People get to contribute in more ways than just verbally, which can sometimes help those who find it difficult to express their ideas through words alone.
By making the abstract concrete, complex ideas are simplified and strategic links become more apparent. This ultimately leads to a more thorough and inclusive brainstorming session with richer, more developed outputs.
Once the brainstorming session is over, the next step is critical: follow-through. But how do we ensure that ideas don't get lost in the aftermath of a busy meeting?
First and foremost, there should be a designated person to document all the notions that were brought up during the session—the notetaker can later share these notes with all attendees.
Then, prioritizing those ideas is essential. Determine which are feasible and align best with the project's goals. Tasks should be assigned with instant commitments to spur momentum based on the brainstorming results.
Next, create a timeline for implementing the top ideas. This can be accompanied by regular check-ins to monitor progress.
Let's dive into some of the most pressing questions around brainstorming.
Structuring a brainstorm can vary depending on the context, but commonly it includes:
Set SMART goals: Ensure goals are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound.
The four basic rules for brainstorming are:
To recap: the right environment and approach can transform an average brainstorm into a storm of innovation. Effective brainstorming is not just about having the conversation; it's about capturing the ideas and acting on them.
With Visme, you get access to a whole library of professionally designed brainstorming templates—all packed with intuitive features. This includes animations, interactive elements and a vast collection of icons, stock images and videos to make the process interactive.
Also, you can gain access to content authoring, visual design, design collaboration, AI text generator, AI design wizard, AI image generator and editing tools.
Visme also offers templates for presentations, infographics, social media graphics, data visualizations and sales and marketing materials so that your team can quickly turn the ideas into tangible, actionable plans.
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