Innovation NavigatorStrategic Game

Possibility Lab: Unlock with 15 Questions

from think it through one more time→to ask fifteen, then try one

The Goal

Break a work challenge the team keeps circling: fifteen or more questions from your trio, no answers, then one move you can make within 48 hours.

Ideal For

Any team stuck on a work challenge it keeps returning to (a team, product, customer or strategy problem), innovation kickoffs, post-failure resets, and the moment a planning discussion goes round in the same circle.

The Shift

From think it through one more time to ask fifteen, then try one.

The Science

Later ideas in a session tend to be more original than the first ones, and people tend to underestimate how much persisting pays off, so the burst keeps going past the obvious. Groups that talk ideas out loud tend to produce fewer of them than the same people writing first, so questions are written silently, then read. And a move planned as “by when, I will” tends to happen more often than a good intention.

Possibility Lab, step by step

Name the challengeOne sentence: a work problem you’ve returned to for at least a month without resolving it. Not a personal matter, and not a problem about a named colleague.
BurstIn trios, the owner states the challenge in one minute; all three write questions silently for four minutes, at least fifteen, with no answers; then they read them aloud. Rotate.
Keep going past the obviousThe first questions are the ones you’d ask anyway; the adjacent and the unexpected come later. Keep writing.
Score and chooseScore each question for pull (1–5), mark A on the ones you could act on within 48 hours, and choose the highest-pull A.
Design the moveSmall enough you can’t avoid it, fast enough to learn from, safe enough to try, and focused enough to shift your view, with a signal that would show it worked.
Commit“By [day and time], I will [move]. I’ll know it shifted something if [signal],” and name the trio partner who checks in at 48 hours.

The techniques, and why they work

The trio Question Burst

The owner states the challenge in a minute; all three write questions silently for four minutes, at least fifteen, no answers; then read them aloud. Groups that talk ideas out loud tend to produce fewer of them than the same people writing first.

Keep going past the obvious

The obvious, the adjacent, the unexpected; then score each question for pull and mark the ones you could act on within 48 hours. Later ideas tend to be more original, and people tend to underestimate how much persisting pays off.

The 48-hour move

Small, fast, safe and focused, written as “By [day and time], I will [move]. I’ll know it shifted something if [signal],” with a partner who checks in. A move planned this way tends to happen more often than a good intention.

Selected research

From the research

The thinking behind this lab, published in full:

Beyond the Prompt: The Four Irreplaceable Pillars of Human Advantage

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