Creating solutions

Finding ideas

The Design Thinking team enters the solution space with the idea generation phase. The aim here is to collect as many different ideas as possible for a user problem. Later, the team will prototype some of the most promising ideas.

Method: "How Might We" - Questions

In Design Thinking, teams often frame the problem they are focusing on as a so-called "How might we?" - Question: "How might we ...?" The question is formulated in such a way that it is open-ended, i.e. it does not yet anticipate a solution.

Method: Free brainstorming

At the beginning of an idea generation phase, the team starts with a silent or free brainstorming. Each team member individually writes down ideas and associations to a specific problem. For five minutes, each member collects their ideas before sharing them with the others on the team.

This allows everyone to think freely about the problem first, without already being influenced by the others' ideas. Joint work on the ideas takes place later.

Method: Hot potato

With the so-called "hot potato" the team members throw a ball to each other. Whoever catches it must express a spontaneous idea about the problem the team is working on. Everything is spontaneous, nothing is evaluated. Every statement is allowed and will be documented. Often, even seemingly off-the-wall ideas help to inspire other team members to come up with new ideas.

With this form of brainstorming in Design Thinking, the team ensures that no one thinks too much about his or her ideas before expressing them.

Method: Childhood heroes

To come up with new ideas, the team uses the opportunity for a change of perspective. Each team member jumps into the role of a childhood hero. What would this hero do?

The ideas that emerge are unusual, perhaps unrealistic, but they open up new inspiring ways of looking at the problem.