2.9 KiB
Converging: Narrow & Decide
Load this when divergence is spent and the user wants to narrow the field — or asks to "decide," "prioritize," "pick," or "make it real." The whole catalog is divergent by design (it generates); this is the deliberate opposite phase, and keeping the two apart is the point. Never run convergence while ideas are still flowing, and never let it leak into a generating batch — premature judgment is what kills good ideas. {doc_workspace}/.memlog.md is the canonical record; everything here works from it. Communicate in {communication_language}.
Mode holds. In Facilitator you run the convergence on the user's verdicts — you structure and prompt, they judge; never rank for them. In Creative Partner you weigh in too, each call logged by author. In Ideate for me you converge yourself and show the result, then offer to keep going.
How to run it
First, reflect the field back: pull the live candidates from the memlog (include the odd and buried ones, not just the recent obvious ones) so there's a concrete set to work on. Then pick one convergence move that fits the goal — don't hand the user a menu of methods; choose the one that suits this decision and name it. Run it to a result, log the outcome, and stop when a clear short-list or single direction emerges.
Pick by what the decision needs:
- Affinity Clustering — when there are many scattered ideas: group them into themes, name each cluster, and surface the through-line. Often the right first move, to turn a pile into a handful.
- Impact–Effort — when the goal is action: place each candidate on impact vs effort; harvest high-impact / low-effort first, park the rest.
- NUF Test — when novelty matters: score each New, Useful, Feasible (1–10 each); the totals expose the quiet winners and the dazzling-but-doomed.
- Forced Ranking / Dot Vote — when you just need a ranked top-N: make the ideas compete, no ties; (a literal dot-vote when it's genuinely a group).
- PMI (Plus / Minus / Interesting) — when one strong candidate needs pressure-testing before commitment: list its pluses, minuses, and the merely-interesting, then judge.
- MoSCoW — when scoping a build: sort into Must / Should / Could / Won't-this-time.
Log the surviving directions and the reasoning with uv run {project-root}/_bmad/scripts/memlog.py append --workspace {doc_workspace} --type decision --text "<one-line gist>" (use --by in Creative Partner mode). Two or three convergence moves chained is fine (e.g. cluster → score the clusters); more than that is usually over-processing.
Then finalize
Once a short-list or direction is settled, load references/finalize.md and run it last — synthesis, status: complete, and artifacts build on the decisions you just logged. Convergence narrows; finalize captures and ships. Do not set status: complete here — that belongs to finalize.