Structured Brainstorming
The Separation Principle — Foundational Rule
Generation and evaluation CANNOT happen simultaneously. Osborn (1953): "You cannot get hot and cold water from the same faucet at the same time — you only get tepid water."
Consequence for the agent: All options must be generated before any option is scored. Never filter or rank during generation. Self-censorship during generation degrades both the quality of ideas and the quality of evaluation.
Phase 1: HMW Framing — Set Up the Ideation Space
Before generating any options, reframe the problem as a "How Might We" question.
Rules for valid HMW questions:
- No embedded solutions: "How might we make onboarding faster?" ✓ vs "How might we add tooltips?" ✗
- Outcome-oriented, not feature-oriented
- Broad enough for genuinely different approaches
- Positive framing (not "How might we avoid X?")
Example transformation:
- Feature request: "Add a dashboard to show workflow status"
- Bad HMW: "How might we build a better dashboard?"
- Good HMW: "How might we give teams confidence that their workflow is progressing correctly?"
The good HMW opens the solution space: the answer isn't necessarily a dashboard.
Phase 2: SCAMPER — 7 Structurally Different Lenses
Apply each SCAMPER lens to the validated job to generate one option per letter. This guarantees structural diversity — each letter produces a categorically different type of option.
| Letter | Lens | Question | What it produces |
|---|---|---|---|
| S | Substitute | What if the core mechanism were replaced entirely? | Alternative technology/approach |
| C | Combine | What if this job were merged with an adjacent job? | Integrated solution |
| A | Adapt | What works well in a different domain? Could we borrow it? | Cross-domain transfer |
| M | Modify/Magnify | What if the most important dimension were amplified? | Focused excellence |
| P | Put to other use | Who else has this job? Could the solution serve them too? | Market extension |
| E | Eliminate | What if we removed the most complex part? | Radical simplification |
| R | Reverse | What if the workflow ran backwards? User and system switched roles? | Inversion |
Required output: At minimum, one option per SCAMPER letter. Name each option clearly. Do not evaluate during generation.
Phase 3: Crazy 8s Supplement — Volume and Self-Censorship Removal
After SCAMPER, generate 2-4 additional options by imagining you have only 1 minute per idea. The time pressure mechanic prevents evaluation creep.
Constraint: Each additional option must differ structurally from all SCAMPER options. Not a variation — a different type of approach.
Phase 4: Option Curation — Converge to 6
Before handing off to taste evaluation:
- List all generated options (7+ from SCAMPER + supplements)
- Remove exact duplicates only — not similar ones, exact
- Group options that are genuine variations of the same approach → keep the strongest representative
- Target: 6 options for evaluation (evidence-backed sweet spot: enough diversity, evaluable without overload)
Diversity test — each of the 6 options should answer yes to:
- Different mechanism? (not just variation in degree)
- Different assumption about user behavior?
- Different cost/effort profile?
If two options share all three, they are variations — merge them.
Option Format
Each option in options-raw.md must follow:
### Option N: [Name] **Core idea**: One sentence — what would a user actually experience? **Key mechanism**: What makes this work? **Key assumption**: What must be true for this to succeed? **SCAMPER origin**: Which lens generated this? (or "Crazy 8s supplement") **Closest competitor**: What existing product does this most?
Anti-Patterns to Avoid
| Anti-pattern | Why it fails | Correction |
|---|---|---|
| Generating one good idea and elaborating it | Confirmation bias — narrows too early | Apply all SCAMPER letters before stopping |
| "Improved version of the existing approach" | Not divergent — variation, not option | Apply E (Eliminate) or R (Reverse) |
| Filtering during generation ("that won't work") | Destroys divergent thinking | Generate everything, filter in taste phase |
| Options that share the same core mechanism | False diversity | Apply diversity test before curating |
| Skipping HMW framing | Solution space collapses prematurely | HMW must precede any generation |
DIVERGE Output for Brainstorming Phase
Produce docs/feature/{feature-id}/diverge/options-raw.md with:
- HMW question — the validated framing
- SCAMPER options — one per letter, named and described
- Crazy 8s supplements — 2-4 additional structurally distinct options
- Curated 6 — with diversity test results
- Eliminated options — brief note on why merged/removed
Gate: 6 curated options, each passing the 3-point diversity test, before taste evaluation begins.
