Techniques for Brainstorming Innovative Product Ideas

How to start creating fresh and innovative ideas for any problem in under 5 minutes. 1. Define the problem 2. Go to your bookshelf. 3. Pick any book 4. Flip through the book and stop on any page. 5. Read the first complete sentence you see. 6. Force yourself to make connections between the sentence and your problem. 7. Write down as many ideas as possible, no matter how silly. 8. Hint: Let your mind wander if it needs to. 9. Stop when 5 minutes are up. Creative coaches call this juxtapositional thinking. I call it the Oracle Technique because this is precisely the thinking the oracles in every religion try to evoke. And I do it at the start of every Generalists project. Because new ideas are precisely what they sound like. New. And they are created only when two ideas that seem to have nothing to do with each other come together. That's literally what happens in the brain. Every time a new idea is formed, two unconnected synapses come together. But the human brain is lazy. It doesn't want to do that. It wants to look for solutions among the many apparent connections it's already made. You've got to make your brain used to making these types of connections. Starting every project with a juxtapositional exercise is a great way to break through that. It's like exercise. It may not result in an immediate solution. But it will put you in the right mindset to find one sooner rather than later. p.s There are no new ideas. There are only better ones. Add even then, they are only better for the circumstances you are in. Get over yourself. p.s.s 10. If it takes you more than 5 minutes to start making connections, your probably trying to solve the wrong problem. p.s.s.s Your oracle doesn't have to be a sentence in a book. It could be anything. Here are some other examples of Oracles I've heard people use. 1. The first thing you hear a stranger say. 2. The first Linkedin post you see 3. A random place on a map. 4. A deck of cards 5. The results of a random word typed into Wikipedia. 6. Random words types into Midjourney Try using the below image as an oracle for a problem you are currently working on.

Sometimes, finding a compelling problem instantly inspires possibilities. Other times, crickets. Rather than waiting around for lightning to strike, we recommend that teams take a more proactive approach, and deliberately provoke their own imaginations. One of the most effective, powerful, and fun tools we have created for such self-provocation missions is what we call “Analogous Exploration.” Building upon the extensive research demonstrating the power of unexpected new combinations, we encourage folks to seek radically unexpected sources of inspiration to provoke their thinking. This means not only leaving the room, and not only leaving the building, but also leaving the industry and the conventional definition of “competitor set” behind. Analogous Exploration is not benchmarking. One early application of this radical tool was with a struggling Semiconductor Company whose sales organization had been refined over time to cater predominantly to its largest customers (who ordered hundreds of millions of units annually). The company’s senior leaders felt they needed to “reinvent the customer experience for smaller customers,” and asked for our help. (Story too long for LinkedIn tldr: they instituted a radical new information-sharing agreement with their largest distribution partner, which they believe is one of the largest supply chain innovations in their industry in the last 50 years.) The COO of the company jokingly confided later that they had been watching the competition closely… but the competition didn’t know how to solve their problems either! By deliberately seeking out unexpected sources of inspiration, the organization was able to jump-start revolutionary innovations that serve the smaller businesses every bit as well as they already did the large customers. Getting out of the box like this will not feel efficient. But it is effective. We have since seen Australian financial services organizations glean insights for how to establish trust with new customers from a barber shops & tattoo parlor (those are fascinating stories), Israeli tech companies learn from farmers’ markets, New Zealand fisheries take notes from prominent tea purveyors and bespoke coffee shops, and Japanese conglomerates attracting top-tier millennial talent based on insights from a rock climbing studio and a belly dancing instructor. Despite their differences, one critical commonality among each of these environments is that the teams positioned to solve the newly-defined problem lacked the requisite inputs to trigger fresh ideas. Imagination is fueled by fresh input, and yet all too often, teams are stuck in a conference room, post-it pads in hand, banging their heads against an all-too-ironically spotless whiteboard. Analogous Exploration is a tool to help folks get out of their context on purpose, with intention, to come back with the inspiration they need to fuel fresh thinking.

Stuck in a rut? Does coming up with a good idea feel like picking something to watch on Netflix? (every choice is mediocre, you end up arguing/scrolling for 2 hours) I have a few ‘good ideas’ to help. Here are 4 brainstorming techniques for UX problems. 💡 🧠 The HMW Reframing Method Start with a challenge—users aren't completing sign-up. Now, reframe it as a How Might We question—how might we make sign-up irresistibly easy? This simple switch kickstarts solution-oriented thinking.  Pro tip: Generate multiple HMWs for each problem to explore different angles. 🧠 The Intersection matrix Create a grid with user needs on one axis and random objects or concepts on the other. For example, "Quick checkout" meets "Rollercoaster." How could the thrill and speed of a rollercoaster inform your checkout process? It's weird, agreed. But you never know, you might end up with unexpected brilliance. 🧠 Reverse brainstorming Flip the script. Instead of asking "How do we improve user engagement?", ask "How could we completely destroy and annihilate user engagement?" List all the terrible ideas, then reverse them. It's a fun way to identify pain points and generate solutions you might have overlooked. 🧠 The 5 Whys You know this classic. Basically, become a toddler. Start with a problem statement and ask "Why?" five times. Each answer becomes the basis for the next "Why?" This helps you dig deeper and uncover root causes. For example: - Users aren't using the new feature. Why? - They don't know it exists. Why? - We haven't promoted it effectively. Why? - Our notification system is broken. Why? - It wasn't properly tested before launch. Why? - We rushed the development process. Boom. Now you know where to focus your problem-solving efforts. It also helps to begin ideation with the ‘hair on fire’ problem. Here’s how. https://bit.ly/4dHyjWl Let’s do opposites. What’s a brainstorming exercise you hate, and why do you think it doesn’t work? Looking to find some interesting answers in the comments! 🥸