{"id":1501,"date":"2014-02-01t00:17:40","date_gmt":"2014-02-01t00:17:40","guid":{"rendered":"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/?p=1501"},"modified":"2014-02-01t00:17:40","modified_gmt":"2014-02-01t00:17:40","slug":"evolution-of-brainstorming-at-a-startup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/blog\/evolution-of-brainstorming-at-a-startup\/","title":{"rendered":"evolution of brainstorming at a startup"},"content":{"rendered":"

as a small staff dependent on the diverse input of all its members, we know that the best ideas can come from anyone on a team. the product team doesn\u2019t always have the best product ideas; the marketing team doesn\u2019t always have the best marketing ideas; and so on. and more often than not, the best ideas are the result of a conversation among magooshers across different teams. because of this, we constantly adapt our process to ensure that we bring out the best ideas from everyone on our staff.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

brainstorming during the \u201ccoffee-machine\u201d days<\/h2>\n

in our very early days, when we were just three people sitting around a small table, eating lunch together everyday, the brainstorming conversations occurred regularly. everyone knew what was going on with all aspects of magoosh, and everyone could contribute. however, as we grew, this impromptu live conversation became less inclusive than we would have liked it to be. i found that people would often tell me their ideas during our weekly 1-on-1 meetings. as ceo, i became the gatekeeper of ideas and projects. if i remembered to advocate and push for someone\u2019s idea, we\u2019d do it. and if i forgot \u2013 even if it was an exceptional idea \u2013 then we wouldn\u2019t do it. the idea and project prioritization process became arbitrary, affected by my mood \u2013 definitely not a good thing!<\/p>\n

we realized that \u201cwater-cooler\u201d (or in our case \u201ccoffee-machine\u201d) talk was biased, favoring those who drank tea\/coffee or spent time in the break room. given that one of our core values<\/a> is accessible > exclusive<\/em>, we wanted to create a system that could include everyone on the team in the idea generation process, not just those with a propensity for drinking liquids \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

how asana changed everything<\/h2>\n

enter asana<\/a>. asana is a project management tool. we basically use it as a shared to-do list, allowing each team member to see what everybody else is working on , and to jump in and out of conversations as needed.<\/p>\n

we created a project in asana called \u201cbrainstorming.\u201d in the project, people can add as many ideas as they want, no matter how vague or half-baked. it\u2019s a safe zone. no idea in the brainstorming project should be criticized; it\u2019s all about building on one another’s ideas<\/a>. since everyone can see all the tasks and participate in all the conversations, no one is excluded. ideas that have come out of “brainstorming” range from getting a nicholas cage pillow case for the office to making vocab flashcards featuring cats to creating slideshares about the tests we teach.<\/p>\n

\"asana<\/h2>\n

transforming ideas into reality<\/h2>\n

once an idea becomes fully-formed \u2013 after the team virtually builds on it \u2013 anyone at magoosh can advocate for it by moving that idea into the agenda for one of our weekly department meetings. for example, the cat-vocab flashcard idea turned into a blog post of gre words featuring cat pictures that exemplify them, and it will be discussed in the next marketing meeting. the general slideshare idea became more concrete, and we actually delivered on it (average gre scores for top universities<\/a>), getting almost 10k views in two weeks.\u00a0and the nicholas cage pillow case, well, that\u2019s still sitting in “brainstorming.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

at magoosh, we understand that everyone is a source of innovative ideas that can help us continue to improve our products and wow our customers. our open-to-all brainstorming process helps keep everyone in the company engaged, or at least those who want to be, and lets everyone contribute ideas without worrying about having those ideas completely thought through: startup brainstorming at its best.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

find out how the brainstorming process evolved at magoosh and how it currently works.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,7],"tags":[],"ppma_author":[496],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nevolution of brainstorming at a startup - magoosh 2022年足球世界杯举办地<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/blog\/evolution-of-brainstorming-at-a-startup\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_us\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"evolution of brainstorming at a startup\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"find out how the brainstorming process evolved at magoosh and how it currently works.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/blog\/evolution-of-brainstorming-at-a-startup\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"magoosh 2022年足球世界杯举办地\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2014-02-01t00:17:40+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/asana-screenshot2.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"bhavin parikh\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"bhavin parikh\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"webpage\",\"@id\":\"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/blog\/evolution-of-brainstorming-at-a-startup\/\",\"url\":\"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/blog\/evolution-of-brainstorming-at-a-startup\/\",\"name\":\"evolution of brainstorming at a startup - 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