That's from the paper? I wasn't sure from the article - they mentioned 50+ individuals but then said they had various conditions (group first or individual first) so I assumed they ran them in different groups. I'll agree a single group of fifty is ridiculous - 10 would be pushing it for me. You'll probably get 2 people posturing/dominating in most places.

My bad. I just mis-read the article. Just now I went and downloaded the paper, and I see no group size specified, nor indeed any details of the procedure they followed. That might just be the house style of the journal. However, they mention that models predict that creativity increase with the size of the group (to a point). But they don't specify this point.

The recommendations they draw are:

1. Combining group and solitary brainstorming

2. Having group brainstormers interact by writing instead of speaking (“brainwriting”)

3. Using networked computers on which individuals type their ideas and read the ideas of others (electronic brainstorming)

They nicely give some recommended readings:

- Paulus, P.B., & Nijstad, B.A. (Eds.). (in press). Group creativity. New York: Oxford University Press.

- Brown, V., Tumeo, M., Larey, T.S., & Paulus, P.B. (1998). Modeling cognitive interactions during group brainstorming. Small Group Research, 29, 495–526.

- Osborn, A.F. (1957). Applied imagination (1st ed.). New York: Scribner.

Many institutional brainstorming sessions I have attended are a complete waste of time, for all the obvious reasons (mostly ego-dominance and poor leadership). This the paper refers to as 'production blocking'. However, I find that managed correctly, there are few better ways to introduce diversity of thought into a process.

Well the lack of numbers is a bit disappointing. I admit I'm not interested enough to really dig in but I do find the results interesting. And they did shoot down the previous advice I was given, which is to have everyone set aside time to write down some ideas before the meeting. It seems the presence of the group itself is a strong motivating factor.