How to best prepare the mind for a problem identification brainstorm? I am a manager of a team of software engineers. We often use brainstorming sessions to generate solutions to problems. We use typical cognitive games, e.g. word association, to "warm-up" and facilitate the ideations sessions. These sessions are fruitful.

Tomorrow we are having a brainstorming session to identify problems, not solutions. It would seem that we should prepare our minds with a different technique. Personally, I find that I am best at noticing problems when I am in a negative mindset. Does that hold true against existing research? If so, what would be a good way of getting in to that type of mindset? I would assume causing some kind of mental anguish would facilitate negative thinking. However I don't want to upset my team or do any lasting damage.

Some random ideas that have come to mind include:
- Taking a minute to talk about historical atrocities
- Having food at the session, but not letting anyone eat

If I go down this road, what would be a good decompression method to get people back in to a positive mindset at the end?
I'm wondering if your approach to "identify[ing] problems, not solutions," will include so-called reverse or negative brainstorming, in which participants are directed to consider "what can be done to break something instead of focusing solely on narrow-minded fixes,"1 to be "highly critical, rather than highly creative."2 If this is the case, the group could "warm up" by applying this technique to some other area: their own lives, their favourite sports teams, public policy issues, etc.

1 Stephen C. Harper. How to Solve Problems with Reverse Brainstorming, posted on his TalentSpace Blog, December 14, 2011.

2 Harper. Extraordinary Entrepreneurship: The Professional's Guide to Starting an Exceptional Enterprise (Google eBook), 2005, p.78.