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      Brainstorming Under Constraints: Why Software Developers Brainstorm in Groups

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      Proceedings of HCI 2011 The 25th BCS Conference on Human Computer Interaction (HCI)
      Human Computer Interaction
      4 - 8 July 2011
      Brainstorming, Idea Generation, Creativity, Problem-solving, Decision-making
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            Abstract

            Group brainstorming is widely adopted as a design method in the domain of software development. However, existing brainstorming literature has consistently proven group brainstorming to be ineffective under the controlled laboratory settings. Yet, electronic brainstorming systems informed by the results of these prior laboratory studies have failed to gain adoption in the field because of the lack of support for group well-being and member support. Therefore, there is a need to better understand brainstorming in the field. In this work, we seek to understand why and how brainstorming is actually practiced, rather than how brainstorming practices deviate from formal brainstorming rules, by observing brainstorming meetings at Microsoft. The results of this work show that, contrary to the conventional brainstorming practices, software teams at Microsoft engage heavily in the constraint discovery process in their brainstorming meetings. We identified two types of constraints that occur in brainstorming meetings. Functional constraints are requirements and criteria that define the idea space, whereas practical constraints are limitations that prioritize the proposed solutions.

            Content

            Author and article information

            Contributors
            Conference
            July 2011
            July 2011
            : 74-83
            Affiliations
            [0001]Department of Informatics

            University of California, Irvine

            Irvine, CA 92697-3440 USA
            [0002]Microsoft Research

            One Microsoft Way

            Redmond, WA, 98052 USA
            Article
            10.14236/ewic/HCI2011.30
            2800a38d-eb88-4bd8-b7a2-3728e7424d3c
            © Patrick C. Shih et al. Published by BCS Learning and Development Ltd. Proceedings of HCI 2011 The 25th BCS Conference on Human Computer Interaction, Newcastle Upon Tyne, UK

            This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

            Proceedings of HCI 2011 The 25th BCS Conference on Human Computer Interaction
            HCI
            25
            Newcastle Upon Tyne, UK
            4 - 8 July 2011
            Electronic Workshops in Computing (eWiC)
            Human Computer Interaction
            History
            Product

            1477-9358 BCS Learning & Development

            Self URI (article page): https://www.scienceopen.com/hosted-document?doi=10.14236/ewic/HCI2011.30
            Self URI (journal page): https://ewic.bcs.org/
            Categories
            Electronic Workshops in Computing

            Applied computer science,Computer science,Security & Cryptology,Graphics & Multimedia design,General computer science,Human-computer-interaction
            Brainstorming,Problem-solving,Idea Generation,Decision-making,Creativity

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