Overview

Brainwriting 6-3-5 is a diverging technique that allows people to build off the ideas of others in a non-biased way.

The Process

This tool works best with a group of 4 people. The process is as follows:

1. Have everybody sit at a corner of a big page with a different color marker
2. Set a timer for 5 minutes
3. For the first round, begin sketching ideas that come to you’re mind
4. When the timer is finished rotate the page 90 degrees
5. For the remaining rounds, build off other people’s ideas based solely on the page. There should be little to no talking about communicating ideas. Restart the timer
6. After the paper rotates to its original position, discuss the ideas that have been formed

My Experience

My Praxis II team utilized Brainwriting 6-3-5 as our initial diverging tool. I ensured nobody had discussed any ideas before proceeding with the activity. This was effective because nobody was biased to think of one solution over another. Either people had an idea in the back of their mind since working on the RFP or they were coming up with an original idea on the spot.

Figure 1: A wave generator with detailed design around power mechanisms since you will need a lot of power to move ice.

Figure 2: Heated side plates with less important detailed design around controls. Highlighted in yellow is an interesting idea that builds on the same concept of heating the dock.

Figure 3: A heated block design with less important detailed design (pulleys). A non-obvious expansion on the idea is highlighted in yellow.

Figure 4: Fans that push away ice initially intended for the dock, but also considered on the ferry itself.

Also recognizing we had a well defined design space, the activity was extremely effective in generating a wide variety of solution concepts. Some of these concepts focus on physically removing ice by melting it (Figures 2 and 3), while others simply push it out of the way (Figures 1 and 4). The use of a timer and independent diverging forced people to share whatever wacky idea they had (since nobody wants to leave a page blank). This contributed to the wide variety of ideas.

Rotating the page and adding to the idea was less effective. This is because most additions to the original idea deal with detailed design decisions. For example, using a pulley and rope to lower the heated block (Figure 3). In an ideal world, you can inspired by somebody’s concept and utilize it in a new way, or come up with a different concept. Some useful additions include moving fans from beneath the water to boats (Figure 4) or making the heated blocks assemble and disassemble (Figure 3). The former fundamentally changes where the solution will be used and the latter attempts to tackle the most unbelievable part of the design.

Discussing ideas at the end is always fun since it's like a game of charades. People react like, ‘Ooooh, that’s what that was.” The overall process aligns strongly with my values of authenticity. This tool lets everybody’s unique position and engineering mind be shared through their unbiased ideas.

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