210 THE CREATIVE INVESTMENT TEAM
watching Adam Smith’s invisible hand at work. The facilitator
shouldn’t interfere too much. If someone wants to move notes that
have already been placed, that’s fine. Others have the option of
moving them back again!
When the sorting and organizing are finished, pass out some
stickies that are a different color from the originals and preferably
larger (4-by-6-inchers work well). Ask the participants to pair up
in threes (as Yogi Berra used to say) and ask these small groups to
name columns that they want to work with. Here is the part of the
exercise that intuitives will like. It involves finding a pattern. Have
them look at the ideas in their assigned column and identify the
relationship between them. For example, our sample column with
“Price to Earnings Ratio” and “Price to Sales Ratios” might be
labeled “Traditional Valuation Methods” to reflect the relation-
ship of the ideas in it. These titles are called headers. Once created,
I move the headers to a separate portion of the wall and give the
participants a moment to look at them. Again, if there is a need for
clarification, it takes place at this point.
The final phase of a brain dump is to ask the participants to
consider the relationship among the headers. In this way, the group
is beginning to create its own learning map. The group members
are looking at their collective “reality”—the key factors involved
in the topic—and discussing what the map should look like. I give
them stickies with arrows drawn on them and ask the group once
again to go to the wall and arrange the headers in some logical
order. It could be chronological, cause and effect, prioritized...
whatever is appropriate. This exercise is not done in silence. It is
important to discuss and reach agreements in this phase, so talking
is encouraged. Usually this final phase takes about 15 minutes to
complete. Therefore, the total time for the brain dump is less than
an hour.
The brain dump is an exercise in “visible thinking.” Although
it’s simple, it invariably results in powerful insights for groups. I
believe that’s because common understanding and agreement are
such powerful motivating factors for groups. The brain dump often14-25 ware 210 1/19/01, 1:16 PM