The Word Banking

The Word Banking is a fantastic and popular creative thinking technique that involves freely associating words.

Take the typical free association game to the next level. While word associations often focus on pairs of words, word banking asks you to form big groups of terms that all describe just a few themes or topics.

If you assume word banking is a fancy term for “word association,” well, you’re right. After free associating words and ideas, form groups of terms that describe just a few topics.

Creating word banks in a business setting can help you dismantle a project into manageable parts — kind of like a mind map. Then, when your work bank is complete, you can retroactively form connections between the terms you came up with, and use those connections to craft ideas that are guaranteed to include all of your most important characteristics.

Why This Brainstorming Technique Works

• Word association is a relatively natural, low-effort task — simply begin with a big idea, then begin jotting down anything that comes up for you.
• It doesn’t require you to know the when, why, or how of an idea.
• Word banking will surface gasps in your knowledge. If you find yourself stuck, it’s time to complete additional research.

Use this technique to:

• Surface everything you know about a topic you’re thinking of tackling in your blog or website.
• Uncover where you and your teammates may need additional training.
• Use these word banks to break a process or project down into manageable chunks.