The numbers, 6-3-5, refer to the principles of brainwriting. The number six refers to the ideal number of people in a brainwriting group, the number three refers to the number of ideas each person in a group needs to write down in a five minute time slot (the number five becoming evident).
The procedure of brainwriting is as follows:
1. Defining the task - The task is presented, written down and discussed.
2. Collecting ideas - Each member of a group needs to write down, on a piece of paper, a list of three ideas that help to solve the task. He or she has five minutes to do this.
3. Forwarding - Each list of three items is forwarded to the person on the left.
4. Linking - Again, each member writes down three ideas in five minutes, this time linking them with the three that were forwarded to him or her.
5. Circling - Steps 3. and 4. are repeated four times so each member of the group has his ideas linked on all six starting idea papers.
6. Evaluation - The lists are again passed around and ideas are voted on. The ones that a person likes are marked down by an "x". The ideas that got an "x" are discussed afterwards.
Ideally, this method of group work has the potential to produce 108 ideas in 30 minutes (excluding the preceding discussion and the succeeding evaluation). Unlike similar methods, brainwriting does not allow discussion during the idea producing phases and rather focuses on the private building upon starting ideas. This way all members of the group, and all ideas, have an equal chance of making it to the discussion following the evaluation phase.
