Creative development of ideas to solve a problem without judging the merit of the ideas. A creativity technique generally attributed to Alex Osborn, an advertising executive in the 1950s. The goal of brainstorming is to create a pool of ideas prior to evaluating each idea. Thus the brainstorming process is a synergistic event that avoids the negative impact of critical evaluation until a number of potential solutions have been created by the group. The result is more ideas to choose from and better quality ideas.