Facilitating Divergent Ideation in the Double Diamond

Facilitate divergent ideation in the Double Diamond Develop phase: brainstorms, sketching and co-design that produce distinct solution concepts.

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At a Glance

Overview

Facilitating divergent ideation is the core of the Develop phase, where the second diamond of the Double Diamond opens out. With a problem agreed in Define, the team's job is now to produce many different possible answers before choosing any. The Design Council says the second diamond "encourages people to give different answers to the clearly defined problem, seeking inspiration from elsewhere and co-designing with a range of different people" (Framework for Innovation).

The difficulty is social more than creative. Groups converge on the first plausible idea, defer to the most senior person, or spend the session evaluating instead of generating. A facilitator's job is to structure time, rules and activities so the group produces volume and variety first, and to hold judgement back until the right moment.

The inputs are the problem statement, the "How might we" questions, the key insights from Define, and a group of participants chosen for range: designers, engineers, delivery staff, subject experts and, where possible, users. The outputs are a large pool of raw ideas, a smaller set of developed concepts that differ from each other in approach, and rough prototypes or sketches that make each concept concrete enough to test in Deliver.

Divergent thinking has a long history as a named idea. The psychologist J. P. Guilford introduced the terms divergent and convergent thinking in 1956, describing divergent thinking as exploring many possible solutions in a free-flowing way (Wikipedia on divergent thinking). The Double Diamond applies that idea to a design project by giving it its own phase.

This skill covers preparing the room and the prompts, running generation rounds with different techniques, involving users and delivery staff, developing ideas into concepts, and knowing when to stop generating.

How It Works

Divergent sessions work when three conditions hold: the prompt is clear, judgement is suspended, and the group has more than one way to contribute.

The prompt is the "How might we" question from Define. A good one points at a problem without naming a solution. If participants keep asking what the session is about, the prompt is too broad. If every idea looks the same, it is too narrow.

Suspending judgement is a rule you state and enforce. IDEO.org's brainstorm rules are the common reference: defer judgement, encourage wild ideas, build on the ideas of others, stay focused on the topic, hold one conversation at a time, be visual, and go for quantity, with good sessions producing up to 100 ideas in 60 minutes (Design Kit brainstorm rules). Quantity matters because early ideas tend to be obvious, and less obvious ones appear once those are out of the way.

Variety of contribution matters because open group discussion favours fast, confident talkers. Silent individual generation before sharing, sketching instead of talking, and small sub-groups all widen who contributes. Timed sketching exercises such as Crazy Eights, in which each person folds a sheet into eight panels and draws eight ideas in a few minutes with about 40 seconds per panel (thoughtbot design sprint guide), push people past their first idea.

Looking elsewhere is a deliberate step. Ask how other industries, services or natural systems handle an analogous problem, and bring examples into the room. This is where the "seeking inspiration from elsewhere" in the Design Council's description becomes a technique rather than a slogan.

Divergence in Develop also happens with materials. Rough prototypes (paper screens, role-played service moments, cardboard mock-ups) are a way to generate and compare ideas as well as to test them. Low-fidelity prototypes are quick to change and reduce designers' attachment to unfinished work (NN/g on prototype fidelity).

Generation ends with light convergence: clustering the pool, combining complementary ideas, and choosing a handful of concepts that differ in approach to take into Deliver. Full evaluation and testing belong to the next phase.

Step-by-Step Guide

Step 1: Prepare the prompt and the evidence

Pick the "How might we" questions you will work on, one per round. Prepare a one-page summary of the problem statement and key insights and put it on the wall or at the top of the shared board. Test each question with a colleague: if they cannot think of three quite different answers in a minute, rework the wording. Decide in advance what a finished session should hand over, for example a handful of distinct concepts with sketches.

Step 2: Invite for range and set the rules

Invite people with different expertise: designers, engineers, delivery or operations staff, subject experts and, where possible, users. State the rules at the start and keep them visible, drawing on IDEO.org's brainstorm rules: defer judgement, build on others, go for quantity. Name what will happen to the ideas afterwards so people trust that wild ones will not be dismissed on the spot. Agree who will enforce the rules, usually the facilitator.

Step 3: Start with silent individual generation

Give everyone a few minutes to write or sketch ideas alone before any discussion. This gets more ideas from quieter participants and stops the first speaker from anchoring the group. Ask for one idea per note. Then have each person share quickly, without debate, and post their notes on the board.

Step 4: Run varied generation rounds

Change technique between rounds so the group does not fall into one pattern. Use timed sketching such as Crazy Eights, analogies from other industries, reversals ("How might we make this worse?" then invert the answers), and building on each other's notes. Keep rounds short and energetic. Stop a round when ideas slow down, not at a fixed count.

Step 5: Co-design with users and delivery staff

Bring in people who live with the problem or deliver the service, and give them the same materials and rules. Ask them to react to and extend ideas as well as generate their own. Watch for moments when a participant says "that would never work because..." and capture the reason, since it is evidence for Deliver. The Design Council's description of Develop names co-designing with a range of different people as part of the phase.

Step 6: Cluster, combine and shape concepts

Group similar ideas, merge ones that complement each other, and give each cluster a short working name. From the clusters, pick a handful of concepts that take different approaches to the problem. Write each as a short description with who it is for, how it works and what assumption it depends on. Avoid choosing several variants of one idea, since Deliver needs real alternatives to compare.

Step 7: Make each concept tangible

Turn each concept into a rough prototype or storyboard: paper screens, a walkthrough script, a service scenario acted out. Keep them cheap so the team can drop or change them without regret, following the guidance on low-fidelity prototypes. Note the riskiest assumption behind each concept, because that is what Deliver should test first. Hand the concepts, prototypes and assumptions to the Deliver phase.

Best Practices

• Separate generating from judging in time. Mixing the two in one round shuts ideas down. Schedule evaluation as its own later activity.
• Warm up before the real prompt. A short, low-stakes exercise loosens a group that is used to meetings about status and decisions.
• Keep the problem visible. Ideas drift without an anchor. Posting the problem statement in the room keeps generation relevant without constraining it.
• Sketch more than you talk. Drawings expose differences between ideas that sound alike in conversation, and they include people who think visually.
• Capture objections as data. When someone explains why an idea would fail, write the reason down. It becomes a test criterion later.
• Leave time between sessions. Ideas often improve after a night's gap. Run two shorter sessions instead of one long one when you can.

Common Mistakes

• Evaluating during generation: Comments like "we tried that" end the flow of ideas. Enforce deferred judgement and move critique into a scheduled later step.
• Letting seniority steer the room: If the most senior person speaks first, others align with them. Start with silent individual work, and ask senior participants to share last.
• Taking variants of one idea into Deliver: Three versions of the same app screen give Deliver nothing to compare. Choose concepts that differ in approach.
• Ideating on an unagreed problem: If participants disagree about what problem they are solving, the ideas will not be comparable. Go back to Define before continuing.
• Polishing prototypes too early: High-fidelity work in Develop makes people defend ideas instead of testing them. Keep prototypes rough until an idea earns more investment.

References

• Examples: Worked examples and scenarios
• FAQ: Frequently asked questions
• Parent Method: Double Diamond

Related Skills

• Conducting Discovery Research in the Double Diamond
• Synthesizing Insights to Define the Problem
• Converging on Final Solutions in the Deliver Phase
• Double Diamond Thinking: Divergent and Convergent Modes
• How to Create a Double Diamond Diagram
• Double Diamond vs Design Thinking: Choosing a Framework
• Adapting the Double Diamond UX Framework for Design Projects

Sources

• Design Council: Framework for Innovation
• Wikipedia: Divergent thinking
• IDEO.org Design Kit: Brainstorm Rules
• thoughtbot design sprint: Crazy Eights
• NN/g: UX Prototypes, Low Fidelity vs. High Fidelity

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