category,technique_name,description,detail
collaborative,Yes And Building,"Never negate; each person opens with ""Yes, and..."" and adds to the last idea, stacking a chain of accepted additions",
collaborative,Brain Writing Round Robin,"Everyone writes ideas silently, then passes their sheet; you build on whatever lands in front of you, round after round",
collaborative,Random Stimulation,"Pull a random word or image and force a link to the problem: ""how does THIS spark a solution?""",
collaborative,Role Playing,"Each person speaks as a different stakeholder, voicing what that role wants, fears, and would demand of the idea",
collaborative,Ideation Relay Race,"30-second turns, no pausing: add one idea, slap it to the next person, keep the baton moving before anyone overthinks",
collaborative,Idea Hot Potato,"One idea gets tossed around the circle; each catcher must mutate it in 10 seconds before passing, no repeats allowed",
collaborative,Steal And Upgrade,"Pick a neighbor's idea you envy, claim it out loud, then make it visibly better before handing it back improved",
collaborative,Fold The Paper,"Each person adds one line to a hidden drawing or sentence, sees only the previous fragment, then unfold the surreal whole",
creative,What If Scenarios,"Detonate one constraint at a time — unlimited budget, opposite is true, problem vanished — and chase what rushes in",
creative,Analogical Thinking,Ask 'this is like what?' and steal the solution pattern from the domain that answers,
creative,First Principles Thinking,"Strip every assumption to bedrock facts, then rebuild the solution from scratch on truth alone",
creative,Forced Relationships,Grab two unrelated things at random and force a bridge between them until an idea falls out,
creative,Time Shifting,"Solve the problem as a 1900s artisan, then a 2150 colonist — harvest the era-bound constraints and tricks",
creative,Metaphor Mapping,"Declare the problem IS a chosen metaphor, extend the metaphor fully, map each part back to find insights",
creative,Cross-Pollination,"Ask how a wildly different industry — casinos, ERs, beekeeping — would crack this, then adapt their move",
creative,Concept Blending,"Fuse two concepts into one new hybrid category and name what the merger becomes, not just combines",
creative,Reverse Brainstorming,Generate problems instead of solutions — 'how could we make this fail?' — then mine each for its inverse,
creative,Sensory Exploration,"Interrogate the idea through each sense — its taste, smell, sound, texture — to surface non-analytical angles",
deep,Five Whys,"Ask ""why?"" five times in a chain, each answer feeding the next, until you hit the root cause beneath the symptom",
deep,Provocation Technique,"State something deliberately absurd, then mine it: ""how could this be useful?"" Extract the usable principle hiding inside",
deep,Assumption Reversal,"List every assumption baked into the problem, flip each to its opposite, then rebuild a solution on the inverted foundation",
deep,Question Storming,"Generate only questions about the problem, zero answers allowed, until the real problem worth solving comes into focus",
deep,Constraint Mapping,"Map every constraint, sort real from imagined, then attack each: dissolve it, route around it, or turn it into an asset",
deep,Failure Analysis,"Dissect a relevant failure: what broke, why it broke, what lesson it leaves, and how to apply that wisdom here",
deep,Emergent Thinking,Stop forcing a solution; watch what patterns the system keeps producing and name what's trying to emerge on its own,
deep,Causal Loop Mapping,"Diagram the feedback loops linking causes and effects, find the reinforcing and balancing cycles, and target the leverage point",
deep,Morphological Analysis,"List the problem's independent parameters, generate options for each, then combine across them to surface untried configurations",
deep,Laddering,"Ask 'and what would that give you?' up the chain until you reach the real underlying need, then ideate fresh at that level",
introspective_delight,Inner Child Conference,"Answer as your 7-year-old self: ask naive 'why why why' questions, chase wonder, ban every boring adult thought",
introspective_delight,Shadow Work Mining,"Name what you're avoiding, resisting, or scared of about this — then dig there for the buried insight",
introspective_delight,Values Archaeology,Keep asking 'why do I care?' until you hit bedrock: the non-negotiable value secretly steering the choice,
introspective_delight,Future Self Interview,Interview your wise 80-year-old self about this problem and write down the advice they give you,
introspective_delight,Body Wisdom Dialogue,"Scan for the tension, flutter, or gut pull each option triggers; let the body's yes/no drive the ideas",
introspective_delight,Permission Giving,"Write yourself an explicit permission slip to think the forbidden, impossible thought — then think it out loud",
introspective_delight,Secret Wish Confession,"Whisper the embarrassing thing you secretly want here but won't admit, then build the idea honoring it",
introspective_delight,Mood Weather Report,"Name the inner weather right now (fog, storm, sun) and let that exact emotional climate generate the ideas",
structured,SCAMPER Method,"Run your idea through seven lenses: Substitute, Combine, Adapt, Modify, Put-to-other-use, Eliminate, Reverse",
structured,Six Thinking Hats,"Examine the problem six ways one at a time: facts, feelings, benefits, risks, new ideas, process",techniques/six-thinking-hats.md
structured,Decision Tree Mapping,"Chart every choice point and the paths it forks into, following each branch to its outcome and risk",
structured,Solution Matrix,"Grid problem variables against solution approaches, score every cell, hunt the best pairings and empty gaps",
structured,Trait Transfer,"Name what makes an unrelated success work, then graft those winning traits onto your own problem",
structured,Lotus Blossom,"Put the theme at the center of a 3x3 grid, fill the 8 cells around it, then promote each of those to the center of its own new 3x3",
structured,Worst Possible Idea,"Deliberately generate the most terrible solutions you can, then flip each into what it teaches you to do right",
structured,Disney Method,"Cycle the idea through three rooms: Dreamer (anything goes), Realist (how we'd build it), Critic (what breaks)",
structured,Starbursting,"Interrogate the idea with only questions — who, what, where, when, why, how — exhaust each before answering any",
structured,Mind Mapping,"Branch the central topic outward, each node spawning children; follow tangents wherever they pull and let the web sprawl",
structured,Crazy 8s,"Eight ideas in eight minutes, one per box, no editing — speed outruns your inner critic",
theatrical,Time Travel Talk Show,"Host a talk show interviewing your past, present, and future selves to mine each era for advice on the problem",
theatrical,Alien Anthropologist,"Become a baffled alien studying the problem and narrate aloud what seems strange, arbitrary, or insane about it",
theatrical,Dream Fusion Laboratory,"Voice the impossible fantasy solution first, then reverse-engineer the bridging steps back to reality",
theatrical,Emotion Orchestra,"Run a separate ideation round led by each emotion (rage, joy, fear, hope), then harmonize their conflicting ideas",
theatrical,Parallel Universe Cafe,"Rewrite one fundamental rule of reality (physics, economics, social norms) and solve the problem under those laws",
theatrical,Persona Journey,"Embody an archetype and solve the problem in-character, naming what that persona sees that you normally miss",
theatrical,Devil's Advocate Courtroom,"Stage a trial: prosecute the idea, defend it, then deliver the jury verdict, each role argued fully in character",
wild,Chaos Engineering,"Deliberately break your idea every way it could fail, then rebuild only the parts that survive the wreckage",
wild,Guerrilla Gardening Ideas,Plant your solution in the least expected place and let it grow underground until it surprises everyone,
wild,Pirate Code Brainstorm,"Steal the best bits from anywhere, remix without asking permission, grab what works and run",
wild,Zombie Apocalypse Planning,"Society just collapsed — strip your idea to only what survives with no power, no rules, no backup",
wild,Drunk History Retelling,"Explain it like you're three drinks in: no filter, no jargon, just the raw stupid-simple truth",
wild,Anti-Solution,"Brainstorm how to make the problem spectacularly worse, then invert every sabotage into a fix",
wild,Elemental Forces,"Let fire, water, earth, and air each sculpt your idea their own brutal way and see what survives",
biomimetic,Nature's Solutions,"Name an organism that already solved your problem, then copy its mechanism into your design",
biomimetic,Ecosystem Thinking,"Map your problem as an ecosystem: who eats whom, who partners, what decays, what fills the gaps",
biomimetic,Evolutionary Pressure,"Spawn many ugly variants, apply a brutal selection rule, breed the survivors, repeat until it adapts",
biomimetic,Predator & Prey,"Pick a threat to your idea, then design the defense, camouflage, or escape an animal would evolve against it",
biomimetic,Metamorphosis Stages,"Force your idea through egg, larva, pupa, adult: a radically different form and purpose at each life stage",
biomimetic,Swarm Logic,Forbid the master plan: solve it with dumb local rules each agent follows so order emerges from the bottom up,
quantum,Observer Effect,"Ask how the act of watching, measuring, or shipping this idea changes the very thing you're trying to capture",
quantum,Entanglement Thinking,Pair two distant parts of the problem and insist a change in one instantly flips the other — surface the hidden linkage,
quantum,Superposition Collapse,"Hold all rival solutions alive at once, then name the one constraint that collapses them to a single winner",
quantum,Relativity Frame Shift,"Re-run the idea from a wildly different observer's reference frame — the slow user, the rival, future-you — and see what warps",
quantum,Field Lines,Treat the goal as a charge and map the invisible forces pulling every stakeholder toward or away from it,
quantum,Quantum Tunneling,"Assume the idea can pass straight through the 'impossible' barrier instead of over it — what's on the other side, reached cheaply",
cultural,Indigenous Wisdom,"Ask how an indigenous or traditional knowledge system would approach this — name the culture, channel its ancestral problem-solving",
cultural,Fusion Cuisine,Pick two unrelated cultures and force-blend their approaches; harvest the hybrid that neither alone would invent,
cultural,Ritual Innovation,"Redesign the idea as a ceremony — define the threshold, the gestures, the transformation participants undergo",
cultural,Mythic Frameworks,"Map the problem onto a myth: name the archetypes, find the parallel tale, let its structure dictate the resolution",
cultural,Proverb Mining,"Collect proverbs from many cultures on this theme, then build the solution from the one that clashes hardest with your assumptions",
cultural,Ancestor Council,"Convene three ancestors or elders from different traditions, voice each one's verdict on your idea, reconcile their disagreement",
cultural,Trickster's Gambit,"Channel the trickster figure — coyote, Anansi, Loki — and solve it by cheating, inverting, or breaking the sacred rule",
absurdist,Villain's Monologue,Pitch your problem as an evil mastermind gloating about their scheme; the diabolical plan reveals the real solution,
absurdist,Explain It to a Golden Retriever,"Re-pitch the idea to an excitable dog who only cares about treats, balls, and naps; keep only what survives",
absurdist,Infomercial at 3AM,"Sell your half-baked idea as a desperate late-night infomercial: 'But wait, there's more!' until features fall out",
absurdist,Drunk Uncle at Thanksgiving,"Have your loudest, least-filtered relative rant about the problem; mine the unhinged hot takes for buried truth",
absurdist,Cursed Genie,"Make a wish, then let a malicious genie grant it in the most technically-correct disastrous way; patch each loophole",
absurdist,Three Rounds of Stupid,"Round 1 absurd ideas, Round 2 make each MORE absurd, Round 3 find the smallest serious thing hiding in the silliest",
constraint,Kill the Crown Jewel,"Delete the single best, most beloved feature — now redesign the whole thing to win without it",
constraint,1000x Budget,"Pretend money, time, and people are infinite — design the absurd version, then mine it for ideas you can actually steal",
constraint,Ship in 60 Minutes,"You launch in one hour with what's already on hand — name what you cut, fake, or borrow to make it real",
constraint,The $0 Mandate,"Achieve the goal spending literally nothing — no tools, hires, or ads; only people, favors, and what you own",
constraint,One Feature Only,"You may keep exactly ONE capability and nothing else — pick it, then make that single thing unbelievably good",
constraint,Crank the Dial to 11,"Pick one dimension and exaggerate it to a ludicrous extreme — fastest, biggest, cheapest, weirdest — and see what breaks open",
constraint,Constraint Roulette,"Each round draw a brutal random limit (no screens, half the team, one day) and re-solve under it; survivors become real ideas",
speculative_future,Time Horizon Ladder,"Solve the idea for 1 year out, then 10, then 100 — note what survives, breaks, or becomes absurd at each rung",
speculative_future,Post-Scarcity Test,"Assume the core constraint (money, energy, time, attention) is now infinite and free — what does the idea become",
speculative_future,Utopia vs Dystopia Split-Screen,Write the same future twice: the brochure where it went perfectly and the headline where it went horribly,
speculative_future,Sci-Fi Artifact From the Future,"Describe one physical object, ad, or news clip from the world where this idea already won — reverse-engineer it",
speculative_future,Emerging Tech Collision,"Force-marry your idea to a frontier tech (AGI, fusion, neural implants, gene edit) and ask what new thing is born",
speculative_future,What-If-The-World-Changed Card Flip,"Draw a wild world-shift (no privacy, half population, 200-yr lifespans) and redesign the idea to fit that world",
speculative_future,Future Anthropologist Dig,"A scholar in 2200 unearths your idea as a relic — what do they conclude it reveals about us, and what replaced it",