category,technique_name,description,detail,provenance,good_for,audience
collaborative,Yes And Building,"Never negate; each person opens with ""Yes, and..."" and adds to the last idea, stacking a chain of accepted additions",,classic,novel|unstuck|planning,group
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",,classic,novel|feature,group
collaborative,Random Stimulation,"Pull a random word or image and force a link to the problem: ""how does THIS spark a solution?""",,classic,unstuck|novel,either
collaborative,Role Playing,"Each person speaks as a different stakeholder, voicing what that role wants, fears, and would demand of the idea",,classic,strategy|personal|feature,either
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",,playful,unstuck,group
collaborative,Idea Hot Potato,"One idea gets tossed around the circle; each catcher must mutate it in 10 seconds before passing, no repeats allowed",,playful,unstuck,group
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",,signature,novel|unstuck,group
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",,playful,unstuck|novel,group
creative,What If Scenarios,"Detonate one constraint at a time — unlimited budget, opposite is true, problem vanished — and chase what rushes in",,signature,novel|strategy|unstuck,either
creative,Analogical Thinking,Ask 'this is like what?' and steal the solution pattern from the domain that answers,,signature,feature|novel|diagnosis,either
creative,First Principles Thinking,"Strip every assumption to bedrock facts, then rebuild the solution from scratch on truth alone",,classic,feature|novel|diagnosis|strategy,either
creative,Forced Relationships,Grab two unrelated things at random and force a bridge between them until an idea falls out,,signature,novel|unstuck,either
creative,Time Shifting,"Solve the problem as a 1900s artisan, then a 2150 colonist — harvest the era-bound constraints and tricks",,signature,novel|unstuck,either
creative,Metaphor Mapping,"Declare the problem IS a chosen metaphor, extend the metaphor fully, map each part back to find insights",,signature,novel|diagnosis,either
creative,Cross-Pollination,"Ask how a wildly different industry — casinos, ERs, beekeeping — would crack this, then adapt their move",,signature,novel|feature|strategy,either
creative,Concept Blending,"Fuse two concepts into one new hybrid category and name what the merger becomes, not just combines",,signature,novel,either
creative,Reverse Brainstorming,Generate problems instead of solutions — 'how could we make this fail?' — then mine each for its inverse,,classic,diagnosis|feature|unstuck,either
creative,Sensory Exploration,"Interrogate the idea through each sense — its taste, smell, sound, texture — to surface non-analytical angles",,signature,novel|unstuck,either
deep,Five Whys,"Ask ""why?"" five times in a chain, each answer feeding the next, until you hit the root cause beneath the symptom",,classic,diagnosis,either
deep,Provocation Technique,"State something deliberately absurd, then mine it: ""how could this be useful?"" Extract the usable principle hiding inside",,classic,unstuck|novel,either
deep,Assumption Reversal,"List every assumption baked into the problem, flip each to its opposite, then rebuild a solution on the inverted foundation",,classic,novel|diagnosis|strategy,either
deep,Question Storming,"Generate only questions about the problem, zero answers allowed, until the real problem worth solving comes into focus",,classic,diagnosis|strategy|unstuck,either
deep,Constraint Mapping,"Map every constraint, sort real from imagined, then attack each: dissolve it, route around it, or turn it into an asset",,signature,feature|strategy|diagnosis,either
deep,Failure Analysis,"Dissect a relevant failure: what broke, why it broke, what lesson it leaves, and how to apply that wisdom here",,signature,diagnosis|strategy|feature,either
deep,Emergent Thinking,Stop forcing a solution; watch what patterns the system keeps producing and name what's trying to emerge on its own,,signature,strategy|novel,either
deep,Causal Loop Mapping,"Diagram the feedback loops linking causes and effects, find the reinforcing and balancing cycles, and target the leverage point",,classic,diagnosis|strategy,either
deep,Morphological Analysis,"List the problem's independent parameters, generate options for each, then combine across them to surface untried configurations",,classic,feature|novel|planning,either
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",,classic,personal|strategy|diagnosis,either
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",,signature,personal|unstuck,solo
introspective_delight,Shadow Work Mining,"Name what you're avoiding, resisting, or scared of about this — then dig there for the buried insight",,signature,personal|diagnosis,solo
introspective_delight,Values Archaeology,Keep asking 'why do I care?' until you hit bedrock: the non-negotiable value secretly steering the choice,,signature,personal|strategy,solo
introspective_delight,Future Self Interview,Interview your wise 80-year-old self about this problem and write down the advice they give you,,signature,personal,solo
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",,signature,personal,solo
introspective_delight,Permission Giving,"Write yourself an explicit permission slip to think the forbidden, impossible thought — then think it out loud",,signature,personal|unstuck,solo
introspective_delight,Secret Wish Confession,"Whisper the embarrassing thing you secretly want here but won't admit, then build the idea honoring it",,signature,personal,solo
introspective_delight,Mood Weather Report,"Name the inner weather right now (fog, storm, sun) and let that exact emotional climate generate the ideas",,signature,personal|unstuck,solo
structured,SCAMPER Method,"Run your idea through seven lenses: Substitute, Combine, Adapt, Modify, Put-to-other-use, Eliminate, Reverse",,classic,feature|novel,either
structured,Six Thinking Hats,"Examine the problem six ways one at a time: facts, feelings, benefits, risks, new ideas, process",,classic,strategy|diagnosis|planning|personal,either
structured,Decision Tree Mapping,"Chart every choice point and the paths it forks into, following each branch to its outcome and risk",,signature,planning|strategy|diagnosis,either
structured,Solution Matrix,"Grid problem variables against solution approaches, score every cell, hunt the best pairings and empty gaps",,signature,feature|planning,either
structured,Trait Transfer,"Name what makes an unrelated success work, then graft those winning traits onto your own problem",,signature,novel|feature,either
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",,classic,feature|planning|novel,either
structured,Worst Possible Idea,"Deliberately generate the most terrible solutions you can, then flip each into what it teaches you to do right",,classic,unstuck|novel,either
structured,Disney Method,"Cycle the idea through three rooms: Dreamer (anything goes), Realist (how we'd build it), Critic (what breaks)",,classic,feature|strategy|planning,either
structured,Starbursting,"Interrogate the idea with only questions — who, what, where, when, why, how — exhaust each before answering any",,classic,feature|planning|diagnosis,either
structured,Mind Mapping,"Branch the central topic outward, each node spawning children; follow tangents wherever they pull and let the web sprawl",,classic,planning|novel|feature,either
structured,Crazy 8s,"Eight ideas in eight minutes, one per box, no editing — speed outruns your inner critic",,classic,feature|novel|unstuck,either
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",,playful,novel|personal,either
theatrical,Alien Anthropologist,"Become a baffled alien studying the problem and narrate aloud what seems strange, arbitrary, or insane about it",,playful,diagnosis|unstuck|strategy,either
theatrical,Dream Fusion Laboratory,"Voice the impossible fantasy solution first, then reverse-engineer the bridging steps back to reality",,signature,novel|unstuck,either
theatrical,Emotion Orchestra,"Run a separate ideation round led by each emotion (rage, joy, fear, hope), then harmonize their conflicting ideas",,playful,personal|strategy,either
theatrical,Parallel Universe Cafe,"Rewrite one fundamental rule of reality (physics, economics, social norms) and solve the problem under those laws",,playful,novel|unstuck,either
theatrical,Persona Journey,"Embody an archetype and solve the problem in-character, naming what that persona sees that you normally miss",,signature,feature|strategy,either
theatrical,Devil's Advocate Courtroom,"Stage a trial: prosecute the idea, defend it, then deliver the jury verdict, each role argued fully in character",,signature,strategy|diagnosis,group
wild,Chaos Engineering,"Deliberately break your idea every way it could fail, then rebuild only the parts that survive the wreckage",,signature,feature|diagnosis|strategy,either
wild,Guerrilla Gardening Ideas,Plant your solution in the least expected place and let it grow underground until it surprises everyone,,playful,strategy|unstuck,either
wild,Pirate Code Brainstorm,"Steal the best bits from anywhere, remix without asking permission, grab what works and run",,playful,novel|unstuck,either
wild,Zombie Apocalypse Planning,"Society just collapsed — strip your idea to only what survives with no power, no rules, no backup",,playful,feature|strategy|unstuck,either
wild,Drunk History Retelling,"Explain it like you're three drinks in: no filter, no jargon, just the raw stupid-simple truth",,playful,unstuck|diagnosis,either
wild,Anti-Solution,"Brainstorm how to make the problem spectacularly worse, then invert every sabotage into a fix",,signature,diagnosis|unstuck,either
wild,Elemental Forces,"Let fire, water, earth, and air each sculpt your idea their own brutal way and see what survives",,playful,novel|unstuck,either
biomimetic,Nature's Solutions,"Name an organism that already solved your problem, then copy its mechanism into your design",,signature,feature|novel,either
biomimetic,Ecosystem Thinking,"Map your problem as an ecosystem: who eats whom, who partners, what decays, what fills the gaps",,signature,strategy|diagnosis,either
biomimetic,Evolutionary Pressure,"Spawn many ugly variants, apply a brutal selection rule, breed the survivors, repeat until it adapts",,signature,feature|novel,either
biomimetic,Predator & Prey,"Pick a threat to your idea, then design the defense, camouflage, or escape an animal would evolve against it",,signature,strategy|feature,either
biomimetic,Metamorphosis Stages,"Force your idea through egg, larva, pupa, adult: a radically different form and purpose at each life stage",,signature,novel|strategy,either
biomimetic,Swarm Logic,Forbid the master plan: solve it with dumb local rules each agent follows so order emerges from the bottom up,,signature,feature|strategy,either
quantum,Observer Effect,"Ask how the act of watching, measuring, or shipping this idea changes the very thing you're trying to capture",,signature,strategy|diagnosis,either
quantum,Entanglement Thinking,Pair two distant parts of the problem and insist a change in one instantly flips the other — surface the hidden linkage,,signature,diagnosis|strategy,either
quantum,Superposition Collapse,"Hold all rival solutions alive at once, then name the one constraint that collapses them to a single winner",,signature,strategy|diagnosis,either
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",,signature,strategy|novel,either
quantum,Field Lines,Treat the goal as a charge and map the invisible forces pulling every stakeholder toward or away from it,,signature,strategy,either
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",,signature,unstuck|novel,either
cultural,Indigenous Wisdom,"Ask how an indigenous or traditional knowledge system would approach this — name the culture, channel its ancestral problem-solving",,signature,personal|strategy|novel,either
cultural,Fusion Cuisine,Pick two unrelated cultures and force-blend their approaches; harvest the hybrid that neither alone would invent,,signature,novel,either
cultural,Ritual Innovation,"Redesign the idea as a ceremony — define the threshold, the gestures, the transformation participants undergo",,signature,novel|personal,either
cultural,Mythic Frameworks,"Map the problem onto a myth: name the archetypes, find the parallel tale, let its structure dictate the resolution",,signature,strategy|personal|novel,either
cultural,Proverb Mining,"Collect proverbs from many cultures on this theme, then build the solution from the one that clashes hardest with your assumptions",,signature,personal|strategy,either
cultural,Ancestor Council,"Convene three ancestors or elders from different traditions, voice each one's verdict on your idea, reconcile their disagreement",,signature,personal|strategy,either
cultural,Trickster's Gambit,"Channel the trickster figure — coyote, Anansi, Loki — and solve it by cheating, inverting, or breaking the sacred rule",,playful,unstuck|strategy,either
absurdist,Villain's Monologue,Pitch your problem as an evil mastermind gloating about their scheme; the diabolical plan reveals the real solution,,playful,diagnosis|strategy|unstuck,either
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",,playful,unstuck|diagnosis|feature,either
absurdist,Infomercial at 3AM,"Sell your half-baked idea as a desperate late-night infomercial: 'But wait, there's more!' until features fall out",,playful,strategy|novel,either
absurdist,Drunk Uncle at Thanksgiving,"Have your loudest, least-filtered relative rant about the problem; mine the unhinged hot takes for buried truth",,playful,unstuck|diagnosis,either
absurdist,Cursed Genie,"Make a wish, then let a malicious genie grant it in the most technically-correct disastrous way; patch each loophole",,playful,diagnosis|feature,either
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",,playful,unstuck|novel,either
constraint,Kill the Crown Jewel,"Delete the single best, most beloved feature — now redesign the whole thing to win without it",,signature,feature|strategy|unstuck,either
constraint,1000x Budget,"Pretend money, time, and people are infinite — design the absurd version, then mine it for ideas you can actually steal",,signature,novel|strategy,either
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",,signature,feature|planning|unstuck,either
constraint,The $0 Mandate,"Achieve the goal spending literally nothing — no tools, hires, or ads; only people, favors, and what you own",,signature,planning|strategy|feature,either
constraint,One Feature Only,"You may keep exactly ONE capability and nothing else — pick it, then make that single thing unbelievably good",,signature,feature|strategy,either
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",,signature,novel|unstuck,either
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",,signature,unstuck|feature,either
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",,signature,strategy|planning|novel,either
speculative_future,Post-Scarcity Test,"Assume the core constraint (money, energy, time, attention) is now infinite and free — what does the idea become",,signature,novel|strategy,either
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,,signature,strategy|diagnosis,either
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",,signature,novel|feature,either
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",,signature,novel|feature|strategy,either
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",,signature,novel|unstuck,either
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",,signature,strategy|novel,either
structured,How Might We,"Reframe the problem as a batch of 'How might we...' opportunity questions first, then ideate against the sharpest one",,classic,feature|novel|strategy|diagnosis,either
structured,Job to Be Done,"Ask what the user is really hiring this to do, then ideate around that underlying job, not the feature you assumed",,classic,feature|strategy|novel,either
structured,Empathy Map,"Map what the user says, thinks, does, and feels around the problem, then mine each quadrant for the unmet need",,classic,feature|personal,either
structured,Backcasting,"Fix the finished future in vivid detail, then work backward step by step to the one move you'd have to make first",,classic,strategy|planning|novel,either
deep,TRIZ Contradiction,"Name the core contradiction (what only improves by making something else worse), then brainstorm ways to win both instead of trading off",,classic,feature|novel|diagnosis,either
deep,Fishbone Diagram,"Branch the problem's spine into cause categories (people, process, tools, environment) and mine each bone for contributing causes",,classic,diagnosis,either
deep,Build on What Works,"Name what's already succeeding and why, then ideate how to amplify and extend it instead of fixing what's broken",,classic,personal|strategy,either
speculative_future,Scenario Cross,"Pick two high-impact uncertainties, cross them into four futures, and ideate the move that wins in every one",,classic,strategy|planning,either