Brainstorm Ideas

The Prompt

Generate 20 ideas for [CHALLENGE/PROBLEM/OPPORTUNITY].

Use these divergent thinking techniques (at least 2 ideas from each):

1. **Inversion:** What if we did the opposite of the obvious approach?
2. **Analogy:** What would [UNRELATED INDUSTRY] do? (e.g., how would Disney solve this? A hospital? A video game?)
3. **Constraint removal:** If money/time/technology were no object, what would we do? Then: what's the 10% version?
4. **Combination:** Mash up two unrelated concepts
5. **Extreme:** Push an existing idea to its logical extreme
6. **User flip:** What if the user did the work? What if we did all of it?
7. **Time shift:** What solution works if this needs to be done in 5 minutes? 5 years?

Rules:
- No idea evaluation during generation (judgment kills creativity)
- Quantity over quality (the 17th idea is often the breakthrough)
- Include at least 3 "absurd" ideas (they often contain kernels of genius)
- After listing all 20, star the 3 most promising and explain why

For each idea: one sentence description + which technique it used.

How To Use It

State your challenge clearly. The more specific the constraint, the more creative the outputs. After generating, resist evaluating immediately — let ideas sit, then combine and refine the promising ones.

Why It Works

Brainstorming fails when people self-censor or converge too quickly on “reasonable” ideas. The technique labels force diversity of approach, and the “no evaluation” rule prevents premature convergence. The best ideas often emerge from combining two “bad” ones.

Variations

Constraint brainstorm:

Generate ideas for [GOAL] but with this constraint: [LIMITATION]. The constraint is non-negotiable — don't try to remove it, work within it creatively.

Idea combination:

Here are 5 mediocre ideas: [LIST]. Combine pairs of them into something better than either alone. Which combination creates something genuinely new?

“Yes, and” chain:

Start with this seed idea: [IDEA]. Build on it 10 times using "yes, and" — each iteration must add something that makes it bigger, weirder, or more useful.