Ideas in action

More on the topic of idea generation:

Marc Andreeson got the ball rolling with his post on Why Brainstorming is a Bad Idea. He quotes from Frans Johansson's book The Medici Effect about how groups that get together to brainstorm consistently underperform groups that split up and brainstorm ideas individually.

In the other corner, Sarah Nelson from Adaptive Path argues for the benefits of brainstorming, but contends that it requires practice and strong facilitation.

From my experience, brainstorming can be a very useful tool. But often organizations have no shortage of good ideas. What is often needed is not more ideas but a person who can filter through the good ideas and make a decision on what action to take.