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By Becky Simon | May 30, 2024
We’ve compiled the most useful free brainstorming templates to improve the creativity, productivity, and efficiency of your team’s brainstorming sessions. You can also learn how to create a brainstorming template in Microsoft Word, and find additional related brainstorming templates.
Included in this article, you’ll find the following:
Column and row brainstorming template
Mind map brainstorming template
Compare and contrast brainstorming diagram template
Microsoft Word Basic Brainstorming Template
Download the Basic Brainstorming Template for Microsoft Word
When to Use This Template: This template is ideal for business, project management, healthcare, and human resources professionals to brainstorm ideas for planning, problem solving, and more. Share this template with your team to help generate and organize ideas.
Notable Template Features: This printer-friendly format provides plenty of fields and space for handwritten brainstorming, with rows for each new idea. The template is arranged with five different spokes for different categories or themes, which you can fill in for your team.
Learn more about brainstorming solutions for your organization and best practices with our guide to discovering the best brainstorming approaches and techniques.
Microsoft Word Column and Row Brainstorming Template
Download the Column and Row Brainstorming Template for Microsoft Word
When to Use This Template: Project management, marketing, business strategy, and data analysis professionals can use this template to organize ideas in a structured matrix.
Notable Template Features: This template comes pre-built with subcategories, so you can structure your brainstorm thematically. Use this template matrix to generate ideas by answering relevant questions for each subcategory. This format makes it easier to see patterns and interactions when brainstorming ideas.
Check out this collection of free Google Docs brainstorming templates to help your organization generate ideas and promote collaboration.
Microsoft Word Mind Map Brainstorming Template
Download the Mind Map Brainstorming Template for Microsoft Word
When to Use This Template: This template is ideal for brainstorming and visualizing ideas for marketing, project management, and business strategy professionals.
Notable Template Features: This template is structured as a mind map: a diagram where you can list ideas related to a central concept, and link related ideas with lines. The mind map structure makes it easy to visualize information and ideas nonlinearly.
Check out this collection of free SWOT analysis templates for Microsoft Word to help your team identify favorable internal and external factors to achieve its objectives.
Microsoft Word Compare and Contrast Brainstorming Diagram Template
Compare and Contrast Brainstorming Diagram Template for Microsoft Word
When to Use This Template: Business analysis, marketing, and project management professionals can use this template to analyze the similarities and differences between two items or scenarios.
Notable Template Features: This template features a comparison chart, or Venn diagram, that you can use to visualize and simplify complex relationships among ideas. This alternative approach to brainstorming and presenting ideas allows you to compare options, so you can see the pros and cons, as well as overlapping consequences of each.
Check out this free fishbone diagram template to determine the root causes and show their relationships for a specific problem or effect.
Microsoft Word Word Association Brainstorming Template
Download the Word Association Brainstorming Template for Microsoft Word
When to Use This Template: This template is ideal for marketing, brand strategy and design, product development, and UX/UI design professionals to generate new, creative ideas by encouraging free association. Encourage team members to add ideas by free associating related words or concepts based around a single central idea. This approach jump-starts creativity without logical constraints that can sometimes limit the brainstorming process.
Notable Template Features: Use random words from one side of the template to brainstorm new ideas and perspectives that relate to the central topic on the other side. The template center is large enough to accommodate a large, in-depth main topic with several associations.
How to Create a Brainstorming Template in Microsoft Word
You can create a brainstorming template in Microsoft Word to structure your brainstorming session and generate ideas. Start by identifying the core problem or topic in the center of the template center, and add ideas to the text boxes that surround the main topic.
Download a basic brainstorming template to guide your brainstorming process. Follow these steps to have a successful session:
Define and Enter the Main Brainstorming Topic
Define the problem or topic and enter it into the center box with the star.
List New and Related Ideas in the Text Boxes
Enter additional ideas from the brainstorm in the text boxes connected to the central problem or topic.
Brainstorming Related Templates
Check out this list of problem-solving and strategic planning templates. Like brainstorming templates, these tools are designed to inform and improve decision-making processes.
Free Fishbone Diagram Templates
A fishbone diagram is a problem-solving tool that you can use to identify potential causes of a specific issue. Use this fishbone diagram template for Microsoft Excel to help your team identify and organize causes for an event.
Free SWOT Analysis Templates for Microsoft Word
Use one of these SWOT templates for Microsoft Word to evaluate how strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats can impact your organization.
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