How to Generate 500 Divergent Ideas in a Day

The process of ideation (generating a ton of ideas) is a lot like bouldering — each method gives access to a new vantage point, encouraging a twist and movement that ultimately strengthens your ability to be creative in the long run. The reality is, the majority of organizations do not create the space for this process, which massively reduces their capacity for innovation in the long term. Employees have no rope, nor holds to grasp; it’s no surprise innovation often remains just a buzzword that manifests itself as a lonely looking idea box.

Over the course of the past few years, I’ve developed and tested my approach to ideation workshops with high schoolers, graduate students, and full corporate design offices. I’d like to share with you what I’ve learned and how you, too, can start ideating with your teams while avoiding the most common pitfalls. I’ll address:

• Why ideation is not a mainstream business practice
• Building familiarity: why ideation methods work when done right
• Best practices for structuring your next ideation session
• A 24-hour template for effective team ideation (recognizing that the best ideas aren’t confined to 9-to-5 work days)
• How to bring ideation into your practice

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Why ideation is not a mainstream business practice.

There are a variety of factors that limit ideation’s role and value in most organizations.

Not enough distraction-free time.

In order to create ideas, we first must allow ourselves time to think together. However, the corporate world of meetings and an “always on” mentality limit the amount of time we can spend thinking at any given stretch. Creating larger blocks of time requires planning, advanced explanation to staff who might be affected by slower than average response times, and approval from the top to take the time in the first place. In Sprint: How to Solve Big Problems and Test Ideas in Just Five Days, author and Google Ventures’ Jake Knapp outlines how Google requires distraction-free participation in order to create the necessary space for great ideas to happen. A variety of agencies, such as AJ&Smart, are even making this the backbone of their consultancy model — read and follow both, respectively, for more nuanced details related to their approaches.

A lack of expertise.

Most companies and individuals lack experience conducting and facilitating ideation methods, and instead associate ideation with a vague sense of brainstorming, or worse, with talking in circles and yet more meetings.

Focus on short term value and alignment to the current business model.

This is generally a good thing, particularly if ideation expertise is lacking. Most corporations are aligned around the status quo and incremental innovation — they need to support existing companies and their business models in order to survive. Spending a day on inventing the future doesn’t tie back to corporate strategy, and thus can’t be justified.

No culture of, or time for, prototyping

Prototyping is the next step in the journey — taking a theoretical concept into a vehicle to proove underlying hypotheses, as quickly and as cheaply as possible. As such, a prototype can be a sketch; a sticker on a door; or a spreadsheet. Prototypes aren’t typically pretty, and are expected to fail — but get us one step closer to a real and valuable product.

Most companies (and individuals) cannot get past this concept of failure. It’s uncomfortable. Traditionally, we’ve been educated to “get it right” and to know all the answers, otherwise assuming we will be judged as a failure, too. However, this type of approach keeps individuals in the same lanes they’ve always been in — and keeps corporations stating that they are “innovative” without doing all the failing required to generate something new and of value.

Building familiarity: why ideation methods work.

All successful ideation methods create the necessary environment in your brain for abductive reasoning and lateral jumps (A + B = C, and D + E = F… … K = Z!!). These connections are radical, do not follow standard thought processes, and have the potential to be innovative.

Taking from the A + B = C equation, ideation methods ask individuals to combine A problem (or aspects of the problem) with a Building block (or blocks) to generate a Concept.

Here are a few examples to clarify how this equation works.

First, A problem: Individuals tend to be unaware of the links between what they eat and their overall blood pressure, which increases the risk long term of cardiac disease.

Second, a Building block (or blocks):

If I was to use a brand model combination method, I might combine a brand process or perspective and apply it to the problem. For example, Starbucks creates a high end but casual environment where I can enjoy coffees that I understand the origins of. In this case, A + B = Starbucks health, a new service that helps coffee drinkers track when and where they drink coffee and how that affects their biorhythms for peak performance. A high end coffee sleeve that serve a dual roll as a blood pressure cuff. A colored/branded blood pressure cuff that links to an app/EMR for periodic recording. A new type of coffee (specific bean, or with organic addititives) designed for people with high stress levels but who still want to drink a lot of coffee.

If I was to use a design pattern combination method, I would combine this problem with a model solution currently popular in society. For example, food trucks allow small businesses to prototype their approach to cooking with low overhead, as well as allow owners to access customers where customers are. In this case, A + B = Free blood pressure testing prior to eating at a food truck; a phone application that allows me to squeeze my phone to determine current pulse/pressure; a napkin with instructions on how to take my blood pressure (or other easy self-check methods).

Any initial concept can then be massaged or flipped in countless ways to generate additional ideas.

Without ideation methods, we’re left to rely on a very small solution set of readily apparent ideas. The result is a set of low risk, incremental ideas that build off the status quo. Often in business and life, this is just fine. However, incremental isn’t innovative — it isn’t a big idea or wildly different from what the competition is doing, therefore limiting upside on value generation.

Still, ideation is exhausting. Through experience, I’ve found that a large ideation session needs to account for the limits of human capacity; support effective recovery in order for additional ideation; and combine a variety of methods that leverage all participants ways of thinking. Enter time boxing, recovery, and ideation method circuit training.

Time boxing

If you’ve set a time box before, you know that it has the effect of sharpening your focus and energy related to the activity at hand. Time boxing ideation activities makes it easier for participants to only focus on the task at hand, as opposed to outside distractions such as email.

Intervals, or breaks, in between time boxes help individuals further focus during an ideation period. A) They know they will have time to check their emails and cover what needs covering and B) the interval will allot for an appropriate recovery.

Recovery

Just like athletes take recovery seriously, so do participants in my ideation sessions. Hydration, healthy snacks, and quiet/meditation time should be provided to decrease the likelihood of participant burn-out.

Circuits

It’s important to vary the methods used during time boxed sessions. There are a variety of ideation methods, and no one-size-fits-all in terms of a participant’s affinity or likelihood to generate ideas — our brains aren’t all wired the same way. Different methods often lead to different ways of thinking and thus more ideas. Also, at some point, you’ll reach a dead end — brainstorm methods can get stale and teams can get stuck. Your method needs to change to get ideas firing again.

Best practices for structuring your next 24 hour ideation session.

Along with time boxing, recovery, and circuit training, here are additional suggestions that will help keep ideation moving.

Prepare for success

• Arrive rested.
• Set the stage — play uplifting music.
• Warm-up, be silly, and get comfortable. Try an exercise listed on an improv activity site.
• Get the brain accustomed to rapid idea generation (eg. write all the fruits you can think of in 20 seconds).
• Choose the MC to keep time and enforce basic rules.

Avoid Exhaustion

• Time boxes should decrease in duration.
• Intervals should increase in duration.

Support the Participants / Manage the Dynamics

• Leverage ideation methods that can be used by both individual and teams.
• Break into groups of no more than 3–4 per ideation activity.
• Build in a cadence of group switching to encourage new interactions and ideas.
• Draw/write ideas on sticky notes.
• Externalize all ideas.
• Vary modes of externalization: draw, write words, and phrases.
• Encourage all groups to practice “yes and” thinking — don’t write off any idea. Add to it.

Build Off Earlier Ideas

• Focus initial ideation methods on combinations.
• Focus subsequent ideation methods on modifications.
• Focus final ideation methods on subconscious processes.

Reflect Together

• Walk the Walls for Inspiration
• Group “Like” Ideas
• Choose the most promising based on 2x2 matrixes (eg. impact vs. cost)
• Set realistic expectations for next steps

An example schedule template.

The following example should be tailored based on the specific problem to be solved; the company solving it; and the individuals available to participate. I link to specific instructions where instructions are available — others are ones I’ve made up in specific contexts that illustrate novel approaches to ideation.

Consensus Building | 8:00 AM — 9:00 AM (60 minutes)

Agree upon the problem to be solved. Conduct 1–2 warm-up activities.

Insight Combination | 9:00 AM — 10:30 AM (90 minutes)

Combine insights from design research with current design patterns to generate new ideas. Discuss/process out loud.

Break | (10 minutes)

Product Blocks | 10:45 AM — 12:00 PM (75 minutes)

Combine core product capabilities and technologies from your company with the problem to be solved to find solutions through reorganization of current resources. Discuss/process out loud.

Break | (30 minutes/lunch)

If we were… | 12:30 PM — 1:30 PM (60 minutes)

Combine brand approaches to the problem to be solved (what would google do?) Discuss/process out loud.

Break | (20 minutes)

Constraint Busters | 1:50 PM — 2:35 PM (45 minutes)

Name the constraints of the problem — then assume the opposite. Reflect on the implications to ideation to date. Discuss/process out loud.

Break | (25 minutes)

Mind Mapping | 3:00 PM — 3:45 PM (45 minutes)

In groups, start individual mental maps — free think connections between your problem and associations that come to mind. After an interval, pass each mental map to the right, and leveraging a teammate’s initial thinking. Discuss/process at the end.

Break | (30 minutes)

SCAMPER | 4:15 PM — 5:00 PM (45 minutes)

Have individuals select and run specific ideas through the SCAMPER technique. Discuss/process at the end.

Break | (90 minutes)

Walkabout Pattern Mapping | 6:30 PM — 8:30 PM (2 hours)

Have individuals choose an experience (service, other) out in the world. Each should find and document ~10 specific patterns of relevance for problem solving, then apply the pattern to the problem in order to force-fit solutions. Discuss the following day.

Break | (until next activity prior to bed)

Directed Subconscious | Overnight

Have each individual reflect Reflect on the five most interesting ideas and found patterns — then direct the subconscious to come up with at least 3 new ideas by morning.

Wake! Like, when you wake up.

Post, Process, and Review | 8:00 AM — 9:00 AM

Have an organic morning of discussion. Encourage individuals to engage in their favorite ideation method from the previous day if warranted. Gather and post all ideas by 9:00 AM for further reflection and evaluation.

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So, how can you create more space for ideation?

Find leaders who can start giving cover.

Given that design sprints and agile methods are being more broadly applied to find solutions to challenges, it’s not likely that you’d get shut down just mentioning the concept of repeatable and dedicated ideation sessions. Help them by citing the examples above — the fact that Google Ventures ran 150+ design sprints for household names should at least open the door.

Once you find them, tell them a story about outcomes.

I will guarantee that ideas will flow like the salmon of capistrano. But it’s impossible to guarantee the next billion dollar business — that’s why the concept of moonshots is now commonplace. What can be guaranteed is team building, and exposure to new problem solving techniques that can be used in the future by all employees.

Start small, and book it.

Find at least 3–5 individuals that you’d like to ideate with. Book a room. Get to work! Commit to each other to follow-up with at least a quick and dirty prototype that can be used to test a hypothesis (all ideas are only hypotheses until tested) within 2 weeks of the ideation date.

A footnote on the utility of ideation.

Most companies pay innovation firms upwards of $200-$400/hr to come up with ideas for or with them. This includes Apple (Ideo). What smart and long-lived companies know is that it pays to have access to a variety of intelligent people with a broad set of differing expertise (mental models), experience coming up with novel ideas, and who have the capacity to prototype (test their solutions quickly and cheaply) to de-risk their ultimate approach. The key is to ensure that individuals representing all lenses of business — corporate strategy, brand, product, sales, and finance — are able to bring their perspectives to bear when vetting what ideas to take forward. Our innovation firm, Thinktiv, can provide all of those views together in one room.

Final thoughts.

• Harness all modes of thought, especially playful ones.
• Encourage quantity over quality — analysis comes later.
• Context is important. Based on the problem that needs solving, and current technologies, solutions, and constraints at one’s disposal, certain ideation methods might make more sense to employ than others.
• Ideation is a skill, and just like any other skill can be practiced and improved.