Overview
An ideation method particularly suited for developing products with completely different concepts from existing products. By conducting brainstorming on a temporary abstract theme rather than the real design subject, you can generate new ideas free from existing products and concepts.
Steps
- 1
Set the design subject in advance.
- 2
Form a group of 5-10 people including a leader. The leader presents an abstracted temporary design subject without revealing the real design subject to members.
- 3
Members who do not know the real design subject freely extract design elements using brainstorming on the presented temporary design subject.
- 4
The leader reveals the real design subject to members and generates new design elements by forcibly associating the design elements extracted in Step 2 with the real theme.
Tips & Tricks
The leader serves as both facilitator and the person who effectively presents portions of information about the real design subject and connects the design elements extracted by members to the real design subject, requiring strong facilitation skills.
Since members may feel psychological resistance to not being presented with the real design subject, a variation is sometimes used where half the members know the real design subject and perform analogical thinking while the other half freely generate ideas.
