Twenty alone, then pool
Everyone writes twenty ideas in silence before anything is said aloud, then the ideas are pooled and clustered. People working alone and then pooling tend to produce more ideas than the same people brainstorming aloud.
Innovation NavigatorStrategic Game
Lean Ideation
from brainstorm, then defend the first idea→to diverge alone, converge on criteria, test before you build
The Goal
Take one sharp question to one testable idea: frame a How Might We, generate alone before pooling, push past the obvious with constraint rounds, choose against criteria agreed in advance, and leave with a disposable prototype and the test that will decide its fate.
Ideal For
Product, innovation and strategy teams with a clear problem and too few real options: innovation kickoffs, design sprints, post-research convergence, and any debate that is about to settle on the first plausible idea.
The Shift
From brainstorm, then defend the first idea to diverge alone, converge on criteria, test before you build.
The Science
People working alone and then pooling tend to produce more ideas than the same people brainstorming aloud together. People also tend to underestimate how much better their ideas get if they keep going, and moderate constraints tend to help creativity. When choosing, people tend to pass over their most original ideas in favour of feasible ones, so the pick gets checked.
Lean Ideation, step by step
- Frame the questionOne How Might We, specific enough to focus and broad enough to explore, with no answer built in; plus the one real limit on any solution.
- Twenty aloneEveryone writes twenty ideas in silence before anything is said aloud. The first ten feel obvious; keep going.
- Pool and clusterPut every idea up, group what’s similar, and name each cluster.
- ConstrainThree rounds, five ideas each, alone first: WORST (the most terrible version), 10× (ten times faster, cheaper or simpler), REVERSE (flip the goal).
- Choose, then checkAgree the criteria before anyone votes; vote silently; plot on Impact × Ease; ask whether the pick is just the safest idea, and keep one Big Bet.
- Hand off to a testPick the idea whose riskiest belief is cheapest to test; sketch a disposable prototype; write “By [date], [owner] runs the cheapest test of [riskiest assumption] for [idea].”
The techniques, and why they work
Constrain to get past the obvious
Three rounds, five ideas each, alone first (WORST, 10×, REVERSE). People tend to underestimate how much better their ideas get if they keep going, and moderate constraints tend to help.
Choose on criteria, then check
Agree the criteria before voting, vote silently, and ask whether the pick is just the safest idea; keep one Big Bet, and hand the chosen idea to a test (riskiest assumption, owner, test date). People tend to pass over their most original ideas when choosing.
Selected research
- Diehl, M., & Stroebe, W. (1987). Productivity loss in brainstorming groups: Toward the solution of a riddle. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 53(3), 497–509.
- Mullen, B., Johnson, C., & Salas, E. (1991). Productivity loss in brainstorming groups: A meta-analytic integration. Basic and Applied Social Psychology, 12(1), 3–23.
- Lucas, B. J., & Nordgren, L. F. (2015). People underestimate the value of persistence for creative performance. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 109(2), 232–243.
- Acar, O. A., Tarakci, M., & van Knippenberg, D. (2019). Creativity and innovation under constraints: A cross-disciplinary integrative review. Journal of Management, 45(1), 96–121.
- Rietzschel, E. F., Nijstad, B. A., & Stroebe, W. (2010). The selection of creative ideas after individual idea generation: Choosing between creativity and impact. British Journal of Psychology, 101(1), 47–68.
- Mueller, J. S., Melwani, S., & Goncalo, J. A. (2012). The bias against creativity: Why people desire but reject creative ideas. Psychological Science, 23(1), 13–17.
From the research
The thinking behind this lab, published in full: