The Devil's Advocate

Action points

If you want to wring the most from the collected brain power at your disposal – and you’d be a fool not to – I humbly offer you a ‘Devil’s Advocate’ approach:

• Individually brief each member of your team. Set the objective, but also spell out what you see as the four main challenges they have to overcome (though they’re allowed to disagree with these).
• Get them to work on the problem individually for 40 minutes (that’s the most a brain can concentrate optimally).
• Come together for a session to pool your ideas. Again, give it a deadline – no more than 30 minutes.
• Appoint a ‘Devil’s Advocate’. Their job is to facilitate the session by stopping loud-mouths trampling on quieter bits of inspiration, and keeping the discussion moving. ...