brainstorming

name	brainstorming
description	Guide for collaborative ideation sessions — when to explore vs narrow, evaluating ideas, avoiding premature commitment.

Brainstorming

Two Phases

Diverge (explore): Generate many ideas without judgment. Quantity over quality. Build on others' ideas. No "but" — only "yes, and."

Converge (narrow): Evaluate, combine, and select. This comes after diverging, never during.

The most common failure mode is converging too early. If you've only generated 2-3 options, you haven't diverged enough.

Generating Ideas

• Start broad: What are all the ways we could solve this?
• Challenge assumptions: What if the constraint we're designing around didn't exist?
• Invert: What's the worst way to do this? (Then flip it.)
• Analogize: How do other systems/domains solve similar problems?
• Vary scale: What if this needed to handle 10x more? Or 1/10th?

Evaluating Ideas

Score against explicit criteria, not gut feel. Common dimensions:

• Effort — How much work to build?
• Impact — How much value does it deliver?
• Risk — What could go wrong? How reversible is it?
• Simplicity — Can we explain it in one sentence?

A 2x2 of effort vs impact is usually enough to prioritize.

Avoiding Premature Commitment

Signs you've committed too early:

• You're defending an approach before exploring alternatives
• The first idea suggested is the one being built
• "We already started" is the main argument for continuing

Antidotes:

• Timebox exploration: "Let's spend 15 minutes generating options before picking one"
• Write down at least 3 approaches before evaluating any
• Ask: "What would we do if this approach weren't available?"
• Prototype two options cheaply rather than debating in the abstract

When to Stop Brainstorming

• You're generating variations of the same 2-3 core ideas
• The group has natural energy/conviction around an approach
• You have enough information to make a reversible decision
• The cost of deciding later exceeds the cost of deciding now