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I agree with the sentiment, but brainstorming is a difficult skill and most teams are not really good at it. Some things can be coached or solved with tools bu

I agree with the sentiment, but brainstorming is a difficult skill and most teams are not really good at it. Some things can be coached or solved with tools but 99% of the problems I experienced boil down to the people involved, team dynamics. Some problems can be surprisingly easy to solve with a decent facilitator, e.g. the loudest voices can be balanced a little bit. The hardest problem (imho): sacrificing creativity for the lowest-common-denominator approach (so everyone is sort-of-kinda-happy yay). In my experience this is way more common at startups than more established teams. Sometimes I think that as much as large businesses struggle with red-tape/slow implementation, startups struggle with decision-making. I know it sounds counter-intuitive.

rapjr9 4y ago
I've always loved brainstorming sessions but I have also noticed they often don't produce much in the way of results. I attribute this to the fact that nobody else (except me) would prepare for the sessions. Ideally the session would be announced a week or a month in advance, and people would be told to think about the problem and come up with some possible ideas or interesting aspects of the problem. Then at the actual session there is something to discuss. Too often people felt overwhelmed with meetings and would just show up and try to come up with ideas on the spot, which never worked well. Retreats are closer to my ideal and they seem to work better than brainstorming sessions. Weekly brainstorming sessions when you have months to come up with new ideas can work well also since they tend to start building on the best ideas that come up.
hef19898 4y ago
Having worked at two start-ups, I agree. I think the "we are all one happy family" is directly driving the "we cannot come to decissions". Both are driving me crazy at the moment.
- rpastuszak 4y ago
  What I've learned is that having a team of passionate, driven people has nothing to do with treating it "like a family" which is both sinister and creepy. Another reason it's a red flag: it's a signal that the company has a somewhat dated approach to hiring. The current generation seems much better at noticing this kind of bullshit than mine.

rapjr9 4y ago

I've always loved brainstorming sessions but I have also noticed they often don't produce much in the way of results. I attribute this to the fact that nobody else (except me) would prepare for the sessions. Ideally the session would be announced a week or a month in advance, and people would be told to think about the problem and come up with some possible ideas or interesting aspects of the problem. Then at the actual session there is something to discuss. Too often people felt overwhelmed with meetings and would just show up and try to come up with ideas on the spot, which never worked well. Retreats are closer to my ideal and they seem to work better than brainstorming sessions. Weekly brainstorming sessions when you have months to come up with new ideas can work well also since they tend to start building on the best ideas that come up.

hef19898 4y ago

Having worked at two start-ups, I agree. I think the "we are all one happy family" is directly driving the "we cannot come to decissions". Both are driving me crazy at the moment.

rpastuszak 4y ago
What I've learned is that having a team of passionate, driven people has nothing to do with treating it "like a family" which is both sinister and creepy. Another reason it's a red flag: it's a signal that the company has a somewhat dated approach to hiring. The current generation seems much better at noticing this kind of bullshit than mine.