Dave WordenTriumph Business Solutions · Founder

Brainstorm Like a Pro: The Silent Method

23 Jun 2026 · 1 min

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0:48

In this short presentation, the speaker outlines a silent, paper‑based brainstorming exercise designed for remote or dispersed teams to generate book titles. Participants each start with a sheet of paper, write a single title, and then pass the sheet to the person on their left. The next person reads the previous title and riffs on it, adding a new variation. The process repeats, creating a chain of iterative title ideas that expands naturally without verbal discussion. In an eight‑person session the group produced dozens of title variants, one of which ultimately became the book’s final title. The method emphasizes low‑tech collaboration, rapid idea expansion, and the creative benefits of silent, sequential contribution.

Chapters

Creativity, we have some great exercises to brainstorm. The reality is when we're working remotely or disparately, we have to work in our tunnels. But when we come together, we can tackle a big topic. We've created book titles. I remember Kelsey walked us through an exercise, which is a great brainstorm. You take a piece of paper and you give it one piece of paper to per person, and it's a column or kind of sheet. And say the brainstorm is around book titles. You write down one book title on your sheet and the person to your left writes one title. So each sheet now has one title on it. Then you pass the document to the person to your left and they look at what the prior title was and they riff off of it, right? And you pass it around. It's this silent brainstorm, but there's this natural expansion, right? And so we came up with 8 people, 8 times 40 or maybe more titles and variants, and one of them became our book title. Yeah, it is really cool creativity.