Ideation

Imagine you’re planning to renovate your home with a partner or roommate. Before going off to buy gallons of paint and new furniture, you’ll probably spend a few days, weeks, or even months exploring and discussing different color palettes, lighting designs, and flooring options. Hopefully, you’ll eventually agree upon a style that suits everyone and start decorating.

This process is called ideation. As the name suggests, the goal is to come up with and explore a wide range of ideas, weighing the pros, cons, and suitability of each one.

Ideation is a key phase in design thinking, product development, marketing strategy, and problem-solving processes. Participants in an ideation session gather with open minds to generate as many ideas as possible before selecting and refining the most promising ones for implementation. This process involves both divergent thinking—generating a broad range of ideas without judgment—and convergent thinking—narrowing down those ideas to identify the best options. 

To ensure the session remains focused and productive, teams must first define the problem they are trying to address—typically through a “problem statement” that outlines the challenge or a “point of view” (POV) that reframes the problem from the user’s perspective. While the problem statement clarifies what needs to be solved, the POV helps illuminate why it matters to the people impacted, guiding the ideation process back to user needs.¹

It's important to note that ideation isn’t simply about putting a bunch of people into a room with some pens and paper and getting them to “ideate.” There are many established techniques and methodologies that help to structure and guide ideation to ensure optimal outcomes. Each approach is typically applied at different stages of the process. Here are just a few examples below:

• Brainstorming: A method where participants build on each other’s ideas in a free-flowing session, encouraging collaboration and spontaneous thinking.
• Brainwrite: Participants write down their ideas individually before sharing them with the group, minimizing the pressure to speak up and allowing for more diverse contributions.
• Worst Possible Idea: Encourages participants to suggest deliberately bad ideas, which can help break down mental barriers and inspire creative solutions by reversing negative concepts.
• SCAMPER: An acronym for Substitute, Combine, Adapt, Modify, Put to another use, Eliminate, and Reverse. This technique prompts thinking through modifications of existing ideas or products.
• Mind Mapping: A visual technique that organizes ideas around a central concept, helping participants explore connections between different thoughts and identify new directions for problem-solving.

Another important aspect of successful ideation is establishing a judgment-free environment. Ideation sessions will often have a facilitator whose job it is to guide the discussions and ensure that everyone’s perspectives are heard and respected. They are also responsible for maintaining the “there is no such thing as bad ideas” mindset within the group—after all, some of the world’s greatest ideas were initially labeled as “bad.” Take, for instance, Thomas Edison’s light bulb which was ridiculed by Henry Morton, a leading scientific mind and president of the Stevens Institute of Technology, as a “conspicuous failure.”² Thankfully, Edison and Morton never sat together in an ideation session.