---
title: "Brainstorming"
---

Facilitate structured creative sessions using 60+ proven ideation techniques.

The Brainstorming workflow is an interactive facilitation system that helps you unlock your own creativity. The AI acts as coach, guide, and creative partner — using proven techniques to draw out ideas and insights that are already within you.

:::note[Important]
Every idea comes from you. The workflow creates the conditions for your best thinking to emerge through guided exploration, but you are the source.
:::

## When to Use It

- Breaking through creative blocks on a specific challenge
- Generating innovative ideas for products, features, or solutions
- Exploring a problem from completely new angles
- Systematically developing ideas from raw concepts to actionable plans
- Team ideation (with collaborative techniques) or personal creative exploration

## How It Works

### 1. Session Setup
Define your topic, goals, and any constraints.

### 2. Choose Your Approach

| Approach | Description |
|----------|-------------|
| **User-Selected** | Browse the full technique library and pick what appeals to you |
| **AI-Recommended** | Get customized technique suggestions based on your goals |
| **Random Selection** | Discover unexpected methods through serendipitous technique combinations |
| **Progressive Flow** | Journey systematically from expansive exploration to focused action planning |

### 3. Interactive Facilitation
Work through techniques with true collaborative coaching. The AI asks probing questions, builds on your ideas, and helps you think deeper—but your ideas are the source.

### 4. Idea Organization
All your generated ideas are organized into themes and prioritized.

### 5. Action Planning
Top ideas get concrete next steps, resource requirements, and success metrics.

## What You Get

A comprehensive session document that captures the entire journey:

- Topic, goals, and session parameters
- Each technique used and how it was applied
- Your contributions and the ideas you generated
- Thematic organization connecting related insights
- Prioritized ideas with action plans
- Session highlights and key breakthroughs

This document becomes a permanent record of your creative process — valuable for future reference, sharing with stakeholders, or continuing the session later.

## Technique Categories

| Category | Focus |
|----------|-------|
| **Collaborative** | Team dynamics and inclusive participation |
| **Creative** | Breakthrough thinking and paradigm shifts |
| **Deep** | Root cause analysis and strategic insight |
| **Structured** | Organized frameworks and systematic exploration |
| **Theatrical** | Playful, radical perspectives |
| **Wild** | Boundary-pushing, extreme thinking |
| **Biomimetic** | Nature-inspired solutions |
| **Quantum** | Quantum principles for innovation |
| **Cultural** | Traditional knowledge and cross-cultural approaches |
| **Introspective Delight** | Inner wisdom and authentic exploration |

## Key Features

- **Interactive coaching** — Pulls ideas *out* of you, doesn't generate them for you
- **On-demand loading** — Techniques loaded from a comprehensive library as needed
- **Session preservation** — Every step, insight, and action plan is documented
- **Continuation support** — Pause sessions and return later, or extend with additional techniques

## Workflow Integration

Brainstorming is a core workflow designed to be invoked and configured by other modules. When called from another workflow, it accepts contextual parameters:

| Parameter | Description |
|-----------|-------------|
| **Topic focus** | What the brainstorming should help discover or solve |
| **Guardrails** | Constraints, boundaries, or must-avoid areas |
| **Output goals** | What the final output needs to accomplish for the calling workflow |
| **Context files** | Project-specific guidance to inform technique selection |

### Example

When creating a new module in the BMad Builder workflow, Brainstorming can be invoked with guardrails around the module's purpose and a goal to discover key features, user needs, or architectural considerations. The session becomes focused on producing exactly what the module creation workflow needs.
