1 is a lonely number?

http://www.imagineeringezine.com/graphics/bstorm.jpg

Doesn't matter if its lonely or not, one person will get more done. What do you mean, you might say? Well, statistics have shown that when brainstorming, individuals working by themselves produce more ideas than groups. On NetAge's Blog post "Brainstorming? Try doing it virtually", they state that real groups have never outperformed individuals who worked by themselves [virtual groups].

This seems to be contrary to everything we have learned as a child. But I completely understand why this occurs. I was in a group last weekend that needed to come up with a mock plan on how to ID voters during a surrogate event for the congressman. We were limited in time so we begin coming up with ideas immediately. What happened was that every time an idea was brought up, there was at least a minute of discussion that sometimes turned into a tangent or brought us back a few steps. It was a form of chaos that ate up alot of our time. I definitely think we could have got alot more done if we broke the project up into 5 sections and each group member took a section and worked on it by themselves

Getting sidetracked or causing group think always occurs in when working with others. When an individual is brainstorming by themselves, everything is more linear without any distractions. So I have to agree with the study since I have experienced the problems with groups many times myself.