Tagged Brainstorming — for facilitators

Samvinas

• In the tool's settings, name your buckets as a comma-separated list (for example Helps, Hinders). Each bucket becomes a coloured bar; colours are assigned automatically from a colour-blind-safe palette.
• Participants open a bucket and add ideas inside it. Everything is visible to everyone as it arrives, newest first.
• Anyone can re-file an idea into a different bucket using the selector on the item — sorting stays a shared, social act.

Each idea carries its bucket as a tag, so downstream tools can fan out by category: pipe Helps into one tool and Hinders into another using the pipe filter's tag picker. One brainstorm, several parallel next steps.

Paper and pen

You need: one flip-chart sheet per bucket taped side by side on a wall, a fat marker to head each sheet, and sticky notes and pens for everyone.

• Head each sheet with a bucket name, written big; put the prompt above them all.
• One idea per sticky note; post it on the sheet where it belongs and say it aloud as you stick it.
• Re-filing is just moving a note — anyone may do it, no permission needed.
• Not sure which bucket? Post to the nearest and keep going. The failure mode is debating categories instead of having ideas — sort later, generate now.
• Harvest: photograph each sheet separately before anything moves; the sheets then travel intact into whatever works on each category next.

When & why

Use it when the categories are known before ideas start flowing — the buckets steer the group's attention. If you want themes to emerge from the ideas, run a plain Brainstorm and follow it with Clustering instead.

• Two to four buckets is the sweet spot; beyond six, choosing a bucket starts to compete with having ideas.
• It's still a brainstorm — defer judgement inside every bucket.
• What usually follows: a different next step per bucket — often Voting within each category, or Clustering if a bucket grew large.