My friend you are wrong, you may not need the brainstorming but planning and specificly the steps in your project is vital.

Imaging a triangle, every corner of this triangle carries one aspect of a project Time, Scop, and Cost. Put pressure in any side of this triangle and the other two will suffer.

Scop: What needs to be done to finish the project?

Planning not only makes your project to be delivered smoothly but also it can help you to specify the possible risks, budgets and even your resources.

If you have a big project then this article will give only a glance as the project planning is very detailed process. In this article I will go over the project planning briefly.

You won’t believe how much you can save in just having a project plan and give your project plan to a designer, or a developer.

9 out of 10 clients of mine don’t have project plan whether they don’t know which I doubt about that as everyone can draw a sitemap and tell you what goes where or they just don’t bother.

From designers perspective it is just a nightmare, because they need to send emails back and forth, try to find the clients and find out what is the client after, what is the feeling of the project then spend so many time to sort things out and after that client and designer will give up because no one knows how the things will work and what are the objectives.

From Clients perspective dollars, dollars and more dollars, yes every call and meeting, every back and forth conversion is costly. Time is the most important thing in the life of a project.

Remember we talked about the triangle of the project. Time put pressure on the resources and costs.

I will talk to you guys more about the scops and the steps in the next article

Brainstorming is one of the most important steps in almost any web/design project lifecycle, however many websites or even graphic designs will ignore this step. Maybe you think “Why on earth I need brainstorming? I have got all of the idea in my mind”

This is a video that I have found on youtube

I have seen so many web projects that needed to be delivered very quickly so the project manger didn’t account anytime for the brainstorming session, and you know what happened yes project handed on time but without every aspect of the project has been compromised.

Let’s get back to the subject; brainstorming has to be counted in the project lifespan. This step like all the other steps that we are going to talk about has rules that need to be followed. I have tested some of them and they worked for me.
Rules in the brainstorming

• First and the most important one follow this one and you are al set. Never ever freeze some ones idea or tell her that she is wrong, making people fear or sense of rejection will as bad as not having the brainstorming at all.
• Try to limit the brainstorming session less than 25 min. I have seen some people get drowsy; un-interested when these sessions go for longer than 25 min.
• It is good to have refreshments, cake, cookies and let people have tea or coffee
• Make sure all the mobile phone are switched off, you think it is a silly rule but trust me I have seen people so annoyed and distracted just with paying more attention to their mobile phone than the actual session.
• On the board write the subject in a red colour or any colour that stand out.
• Make someone to be a chairman, take a note, put the recommended solutions on the board so everyone can see how the subject is continuing, and try to pint out the top five of the solutions.
• Remember the left brain is responsible for the logics and the right brain is the emotional section also is the one that can persuade the left brain. We go over this statement more but for now just remember if you find out the brainstorming is not working try to read the throw some random words about the subjects.
• Try to use mind map we will also go over this matter again and in more details
• There is a very delicate point to remember. If you see people walk out the door after the session and they seem to look happy and content, they talk about the project mostly you can rely on the solution. The easiest way to test is having the best solution picked and go over the project plan which we will talk about it later and present it to every member and see their reaction. Personally I haven’t tried this step.
• When the time out then choose the top five of the solutions and score them from 0 to 5 then pick the top score as the solution.

If you don’t follow any of the above steps just follow the first step, get the chairman to write the solutions, pick five of the best one and score them at last pick the highest score and you are good to go.