Constructive Blame storming and using Devils Advocate in problem solving and competency development

Discussions leads to solutions , mistakes leads to innovations, As part of innovation , solution approaches, models quite often used technique in healthy discussions on day to day basis is Brain Storming, mischievously known as blame storming.

To the extent organizations build competency around subjects of real time situations, till it takes to materialized very few of them make it to the concrete implementations. Take for example Google revolutionized the way we use internet with countable team, that storm sustained and now second wave coming from Facebook, Linked etc. Questions asked about their revenue models but skepticism will always there, social networks are strong tools not only for marketing but of communication, collaboration, and increased productivity and realized intangible benefits.

Discussions are full of Arguments, counter arguments, statements, facts, thesis, anti thesis etc. Contextually the term devil's advocate can be discussed here, Devil's advocate is someone who, given a certain argument, takes a position he or she does not necessarily agree with, just for the sake of argument to test the quality of the original argument and identify weaknesses in its structure, and to use such information to either improve or abandon the original, opposing position. So a devils advocate helps in testifying the strength of the opinion and justified to be relevant, which can be of importance in brain storming process, it may or may not create lateral arguments, or form synergies.

Any thoughts during brain storming process can be presented it may be of relevance or not. Decisions cannot be made during this process. Obviously during discussions, participants ideas should be connected to the problem areas. Edward de bono's technique of six thinking hats for discussions in which each participants wears different hats of thought to think in different ways to the same problem with a different perspective with different roles for solution approaches helps a lot for a healthy brain storming session.

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