Brainstorming is an opportunity for remote teams to get on the same page without the physical constraints of being in the same room with your colleagues. By using one of these brainstorming tools, teams will be in a better place to solve any work-related issues, make decisions, and produce new products and services.

1. Stormboard

Stormboard is a flexible and powerful brainstorming platform to gather ideas, prioritize, organize and refine those ideas to make meetings, brainstorm sessions, projects, and ideation more collaborative and effective. Simply put, it helps you organize your work visually.

You can widen your team’s perspectives with real-time collaboration tools. You can share ideas and collaborate on sticky notes, whiteboards, and documents with them from anywhere, and while you do so, you can be at ease about your security.

Your ideas are encrypted and transmitted securely through a 256-bit bank-grade SSL Internet connection. Using Stormboard, you can give up clicking blurry pictures of whiteboards and collaborate in real-time. One of the most important advantages of using a quick collaboration tool like Stormboard is the fact that you can easily generate reports.

When you’re holding a meeting with your team and discussing certain ideas, a great way to package your discussion is to create a report for everyone to see. Instead of relying on a good memory, or taking notes and possibly missing some thoughts, you provide a valuable reference guide for you and your team to follow up on in the future.

2. Miro

Miro is the online collaborative whiteboard platform to bring teams together, anytime, anywhere. Miro’s blank canvas works on all devices and platforms, integrating seamlessly into how you and your team already collaborate.

With Miro, teams can clearly share ideas, thoughts, and plans. Miro lets people collaborate face to face from anywhere. It opens up a new way of working — both inside your company and with customers, partners, or anyone else you want to do business with.

You can start jotting down your ideas, or hold brainstorming workshops where you can convert physical boards to digital sticky notes. Moreover, there are 120 pre-built templates to help you brainstorm better.

Brainstorming in Miro is easier because you can gather references, or import data, images, diagrams from anywhere, anytime. You can also make great use of keyword search, tagging, and mind mapping to steer ideation in your team.

3. Cacoo

Being an online diagram and flowchart software, Cacoo is the best place for keeping your team assets organized. You can also create and securely share flowcharts, wireframes, UML models, network diagrams, and more.

You can use Cacoo’s mind maps, affinity mapping techniques, or pre-built templates to help you ace your brainstorming sessions. Not only that, but you can also play games like word association, idea swapping, alter-egos, reverse brainstorming, and a gap analysis race using Cacoo to make the most out of those brainstorming sessions.

With Cacoo, you can get the cloud-based diagram maker and access to all tools you need for an efficient team workflow and get going at the speed of thought. Packed with great features that are perfect for any team, Cacoo simplifies and enhances your visual workflow, thereby making your brainstorming sessions more effective.

4. Mural.Co

Claiming to be the digital-first visual collaboration platform, Mural is more than an online whiteboard. Mural is a digital canvas where teams can collaborate visually and problem-solve faster. With guided methods, an easy-to-use digital canvas, and a team library, Mural puts all the tools you require right at your fingertips.

You can drive effective decision-making with sessions that are customized, structured, and known to facilitate productivity. With Mural, you can make meetings and workshops more interactive, engaging, and fun. Whether you’re organizing a brainstorming session with colleagues or a multi-day workshop with clients, our collaboration software has everything you need to get the job done.

Mural has multiple pre-built templates in the form of meeting notes, team kick-off ideas, agendas, thinking toolkit, personas, and more. These serve as a great starting point to find some inspiration and collaborate effectively.

5. Collaboard

With enterprise-grade security, Collaboard is the perfect brainstorming solution for teams. You can generate new and innovative ideas with unique design thinking techniques, visualize them with your team in real-time, sketch product designs, plan workshops, and do so much more on the infinite canvases it provides.

Collaboard is a cloud-based whiteboarding tool that enables groups to easily sketch their projects and share them inside a secure workspace. Within a few clicks, you will be able to design a board, invite contributors, share your drawings with anyone from any device and even protect them.

Collaboard offers an unlimited canvas where your ideas can run wild. You can collaborate and communicate in a way that suits your organization best—on any device at any time.

6. Mindmeister

MindMeister has several features that make it great for online brainstorming. Anybody can join a mind map, which means you don’t have to worry about creating a separate one just for your team members. It also makes it easy to connect with different people, and creates real-time updates, so you can see everyone’s ideas in action.

To make your virtual brainstorming sessions productive, all mind maps are updated in real-time to ensure seamless collaboration. Moreover, you can collate all inspiration and ideas in one place with relevant images, videos, and links while voting, commenting, and engaging in feedback.

You can also present great ideas with MindMeister in the middle of a brainstorming session, or turn your ideas into actions that can be executed, using their integrated task management tool.

The Key to Effective Collaboration Is Better Brainstorming

Though brainstorming is best done in person, there are remote tools available to help facilitate the brainstorming process. A combination of technology and creative thinking from remote teams can combine to help them connect, develop new ways of thinking, and solve problems. Brainstorming is not just an idea—it’s a way to make the most out of team collaboration.

Whether you’re a remote team or an in-house team, these brainstorming tools give you the resources you need to help establish the collaboration you desire. For best results, start by determining your goals and objectives, then work towards creating a plan to meet them. Ultimately, a brainstorming session will be most effective when all participants leave feeling satisfied.