Coaching practices for Divergent Thinking Generating Many Ideas with My Partner

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Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?

  • I’ve hit a wall where every new idea is just a slight rewording of the last one
  • Every time we get the team in a room to brainstorm, the loudest two people steer it and everyone else goes quiet
  • I’m sitting on a big messy pile of ideas and now I’m just frozen
  • Every time I try to brainstorm, the critic and the dreamer are talking over each other
  • The second an idea pops up I’ve already told myself why it won’t work, so it dies before I’ve even finished thinking it

Practices that may help

  1. Divergent Thinking: Generating Many Ideas
    Divergent thinking is generating many varied ideas before judging any of them — the opposite of converging on one answer. The most reliable practical principle is to separate idea generation from evaluation. An honest caveat: traditional group brainstorming usually underperforms the same people working alone and pooling ideas, due to a documented productivity loss.
  2. Use SCAMPER and other prompts to vary ideas
    Apply structured prompts (substitute, combine, adapt, modify, etc.) to push ideas in new directions.
    Divergent Thinking: Generating Many Ideas
  3. Brainwrite instead of group brainstorm
    Have people generate ideas silently and individually first, then pool and build.
    Divergent Thinking: Generating Many Ideas
  4. Balance divergent with convergent thinking
    Treat creativity as two phases — open up to generate, then close down to select.
    Divergent Thinking: Generating Many Ideas
  5. Separate divergence from convergence sessions
    Keep idea generation and idea selection in separate sittings — never mix the modes.
    Quantity Over Quality: How More Drafts Produce Better Work
  6. Defer judgment during generation
    Generate ideas with no criticism, then evaluate in a separate pass.
    Divergent Thinking: Generating Many Ideas
  7. Combine and build on others’ ideas
    Treat every idea as a building block — the best ideas in a session are usually hybrids.
    Osborn’s Brainstorming Rules, Made Practical
  8. Cross-pollinate from distant domains
    Pull ideas and analogies from fields unrelated to your problem.
    Divergent Thinking: Generating Many Ideas
  9. Walk to generate ideas (divergent thinking)
    When you need many options, walk while you brainstorm.
    Walking for Creativity
  10. Combine
    Ask: what two things — purposes, materials, functions, or ideas — could be merged to create something new?
    SCAMPER: A Systematic Creativity Technique

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