Ideation Phase

The creative stage where teams generate a wide range of potential design solutions.

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Process

The Ideation Phase generates potential solutions to the defined problem. It follows a diverge-then-converge pattern: first generate as many ideas as possible without judgment, then evaluate and select the most promising ones. Methods include brainstorming, sketching, Crazy 8s, How Might We questions, SCAMPER, mind mapping, and analogous inspiration. The key principle: separate generation from evaluation — premature criticism kills creative thinking. Ideation should involve diverse perspectives (design, engineering, product, stakeholders) for richer solution spaces.

Why It Matters

The ideation phase is the divergent thinking stage of the design process where teams generate a wide range of potential solutions before converging on the most promising directions. Rushing through ideation — or skipping it entirely — is the most common reason teams ship the first idea that came to mind rather than the best idea the group could produce, locking the product into local optima that are expensive to escape later. A well-facilitated ideation phase surfaces unexpected combinations, challenges assumptions baked into the brief, and gives quieter team members structured opportunities to contribute ideas that would never emerge in an unstructured brainstorm.

Real-World Examples

Google Design Sprint ideation exercises

The Google Ventures Design Sprint dedicates an entire day to structured ideation, using exercises like Lightning Demos, Crazy Eights, and Solution Sketching to generate dozens of potential solutions before a single one is selected for prototyping. Each participant sketches independently before group review, preventing groupthink and ensuring that introverted team members contribute on equal footing. The structured divergence produces a richer solution set than any unstructured brainstorm could achieve.

IDEO's brainstorming culture

IDEO's ideation sessions follow explicit rules: defer judgment, build on others' ideas, encourage wild ideas, go for quantity, stay focused, one conversation at a time, and be visual. These rules create psychological safety that lets participants propose unconventional solutions without fear of immediate criticism. The firm's most innovative products — from the first Apple mouse to Oral-B children's toothbrushes — emerged from ideation sessions that initially produced hundreds of unfiltered concepts.

Counter-example

Brainstorming dominated by the loudest voice

A team holds a free-form brainstorming session where the product manager and senior designer propose ideas while junior designers and engineers sit silently, nodding along. The session converges on the first idea the PM suggested within ten minutes, and the remaining time is spent refining that single concept rather than exploring alternatives. The team ships the default solution without ever discovering that a junior engineer had a technically simpler approach that would have solved the problem in half the time.

Role-Specific Guidance

Common Mistakes

• The most common mistake is blending divergent and convergent thinking in the same session — evaluating feasibility and critiquing ideas while they are being generated kills creative momentum and biases the group toward safe, incremental solutions. Teams also frequently skip ideation for features they consider 'obvious,' only to discover during user testing that the obvious solution does not match user mental models or needs. Another error is conducting ideation in exclusively verbal formats, which favors extroverted participants and produces a narrower solution set than methods that incorporate individual sketching, writing, or asynchronous contribution.