People aren’t necessarily more creative in groups than alone , or vice versa . In fact, creativity needs both conditions; our performance peaks when we alternate–first working alone, then coming together to share our ideas, then going off by ourselves again to mull over what we heard. It’s a process. This is because our brains’ creative engines are fueled both by quiet mind-wandering , allowing novel and unexpected connections to form, and by encountering new information, which often comes from other people.

The typical brainstorm over-delivers on the latter and under-delivers on the former, which means that for lots of people, brainstorming is an utter nightmare. Introverts just feel alienated, and extroverts aren’t pushed to reflect more deeply on the ideas they’ve batted around amongst themselves.

Here are three alternatives that can help you sidestep all of these issues and actually get something done.

1. The Ambassador Method

Split your team into two groups, and put each in a separate room. The teams are set up to work on the same topic or problem statement. Team 1 doesn’t speak; they write down their ideas quietly and individually. Team 2 has a more traditional brainstorm, calling out their ideas and writing them up on the whiteboard. Let people choose which team they’d like to be on, and don’t worry if there aren’t equal numbers of people on each team as a result. This part can last 5–15 minutes.

Traditional brainstorming is time-bound in a way that our brains’ natural creative flow is not.

Then each team has another 5–10 minutes to organize their ideas (the quiet team can talk now), bucket them into themes, and clarify anything half-baked or unclear. Now each team nominates one ambassador to go into the other room and share their own team’s ideas with the other group. This way the quiet group goes from listening to themselves to listening to someone else, and the talkative group goes from talking to listening. (This help light up different parts of the brain and gets more of the mind’s creative engine running.)

When the ambassadors are done presenting, they return to their rooms for a new round. At this point, anybody is allowed to switch rooms. If someone wants to take part in the out-loud discussion, they’re welcome to join that team, and anybody who’d rather have quiet time to mull over an idea can do so if they haven’t yet.

The second round can 5–15 minutes as well, after which point the ideas are quickly listed out, discussed, and clarified again, and new ambassadors are chosen. You can run this cycle as many times as you like, although there tend to be diminishing returns after three sets. When you’re done cycling through, bring both teams together and have everyone discuss what they’ve found.