What approach to collaboration and innovation is the most effective is fairly fascinating to me. One addition to your thoughts on collaboration versus isolation that you may want to consider is the fact that when a group brainstorms together they are also learning from each other.
I always thoughts the learning and new ways of thinking that were shared, directly and indirectly, during these sessions were extremely valuable. Another consideration I think is important is the issue of trust, which is extremely important for high performing teams and the larger organization itself. Workers that work in isolation or silos tend to develop a higher level of distrust for their coworkers then teams that work collaboratively (Katz, 2010).
It simply makes sense that employees would build trust and a sense of community when working collaboratively then when they are working in isolation. At the end of the day I simply feel that there is more value added then simply the innovations that come out of the brainstorming sessions that should be considered. Team building improves morale and helps the team members learn from each other, which they are unable to do in isolation. One of the great things about these discussion boards is we can have compelling sessions of discourse where we can all take away nuggets of knowledge.
QUESTION: With the above in mind, which approach do you genuinely feel is more beneficial long term for the business?