For a creative strategist, the best brainstorming sessions aren't really about “coming up with lots of ideas.” They're about creating the right conditions to reframe the problem, generate diverse possibilities, and then identify the ideas with strategic potential.

A strong approach is to deliberately alternate between divergent thinking (expand the possibilities) and convergent thinking (evaluate and focus). IDEO describes this as a recurring rhythm rather than a linear process.

The most useful methods

1. Start with “How Might We?” reframing

Before brainstorming, rewrite the problem as an open-ended question:

“How might we make people excited about trying our new product?” Then create several versions:

• How might we make trying it feel exclusive?
• How might we make trying it feel effortless?
• How might we make people want to tell their friends?
• How might we make the product feel like a cultural moment?

This is particularly valuable for strategists because the framing determines the size of the creative territory. IDEO explicitly recommends framing challenges with “How might we…?” questions to open possibilities.

2. Brainwriting before group discussion

Instead of immediately asking everyone to shout ideas into the room, give everyone 5–10 minutes to write ideas independently.

Then share and build on them.

This prevents the loudest or most senior person from defining the direction too early, and gives quieter participants equal opportunity to contribute.

Great for: agency teams, cross-functional groups, executive stakeholders.

3. SCAMPER

Take an existing idea, campaign, product, experience, or assumption and deliberately manipulate it:

• Substitute
• Combine
• Adapt
• Modify
• Put to another use
• Eliminate
• Rearrange/Reverse

For a creative strategist, this is particularly useful when the team is saying, “We've already explored all the obvious ideas.” SCAMPER forces new perspectives instead of relying on spontaneous inspiration.

4. Analogical thinking

Ask:

“Who else has solved a similar problem brilliantly?” But look outside the category.

For example, if you're working on a banking brief, don't only examine other banks. Look at:

• Gaming
• Hospitality
• Luxury
• Sports
• Dating apps
• Entertainment
• Retail
• Education

Then ask:

“What principle could we steal from this world and translate into ours?” This is one of my favorite methods for strategists because it produces conceptual territories, not just executions.

5. Worst Possible Idea

Ask the team to deliberately create the worst possible solution.

For example:

“How could we make this campaign completely irrelevant to Gen Z?” You'll get ridiculous answers. Then reverse them:

“What's the opposite of that?” A terrible idea can become a surprisingly useful strategic direction. “Worst Possible Idea” is recognized as an ideation technique specifically designed to push teams beyond obvious solutions.

6. Constraint-based ideation

Instead of saying:

“Come up with anything.” Give the team a constraint:

• The idea must cost almost nothing.
• It has to work without paid media.
• It must happen in the physical world.
• It must be explainable in one sentence.
• It has to make people participate rather than watch.
• It must generate earned media.
• It has to work without mentioning the brand.
• It has to make the audience the hero.

Constraints often increase creativity rather than restrict it.

7. Mind mapping

Put the central challenge in the middle and branch outward:

Brand problem → audience → tensions → behaviors → cultural trends → emotions → occasions → barriers → opportunities

Then keep branching.

Mind mapping is particularly useful when you want to move from a broad strategic problem toward multiple creative territories rather than immediately jumping into campaign ideas.

8. Crazy 8s / rapid sketching

Give everyone eight minutes to produce eight different ideas.

The important part isn't artistic ability. It's forcing speed and volume.

The first couple of ideas tend to be obvious. The later ones often become stranger and more interesting because the participant has exhausted their default answers. Crazy 8s is commonly used for rapid divergent ideation.

9. Provocation

Rather than asking:

“What's a good idea?” make deliberately provocative statements:

• What if the product disappeared?
• What if the competitor became our partner?
• What if customers never saw an advertisement?
• What if the campaign couldn't use social media?
• What if we had to make this famous in 24 hours?
• What if the brand behaved like a person?
• What if the opposite were true?

The goal isn't necessarily to pursue the provocation. It's to break habitual thinking.

10. Storyboarding

Instead of generating isolated concepts, ask the team to visualize the customer experience from beginning to end:

Before → trigger → interaction → experience → reaction → sharing → aftermath

This is excellent for experiential campaigns, brand experiences, product launches, social campaigns, and customer journeys.

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The part most teams get wrong: convergence

A brainstorming session shouldn't end with:

“Great, we have 147 sticky notes.” You need a deliberate selection phase.

Cluster similar ideas, then evaluate them against criteria such as:

Dot voting is useful for quickly identifying favorites, while an impact/effort matrix can help distinguish attractive ideas from actionable ones.

A creative-strategist session I'd actually run

For a 90-minute session, I'd use this structure:

1. 0–10 min — Frame

• Define the business problem.
• Share the key audience insight.
• Write 3–5 “How Might We?” questions.

2. 10–20 min — Inspiration

• Show cultural examples, category provocations, interesting behaviors, or analogies.
• Avoid showing examples that make everyone copy the same execution.

3. 20–30 min — Brainwriting

• Everyone independently generates ideas.

4. 30–45 min — Divergence

• SCAMPER
• Provocations
• Analogies
• Constraints

5. 45–60 min — Build

• Participants combine, mutate, and improve one another's ideas.

6. 60–70 min — Cluster

• Group ideas into emerging creative territories.

7. 70–80 min — Converge

• Vote and score against strategic criteria.

8. 80–90 min — Develop

• Pick the 3–5 strongest territories.
• Give each a big idea + strategic rationale + potential executions.

That last step is crucial. You're not trying to leave the room with “the answer.” You're trying to leave with a small number of strategically promising territories worth developing.

One principle I'd emphasize

Don't brainstorm executions too early.

A creative strategist should ideally move through:

Problem → insight → tension → opportunity → territory → idea → execution

rather than:

“We need a TikTok campaign. What should we do?”

The former creates strategic creativity. The latter tends to create a pile of disconnected tactics.

And when a team gets stuck, change the question, perspective, constraint, or stimulus rather than simply telling people to “be more creative.” That's usually where the breakthrough comes from.

Dot voting is useful for quickly identifying favorites, while an impact/effort matrix can help distinguish attractive ideas from actionable ones.

A creative-strategist session I'd actually run

For a 90-minute session, I'd use this structure:

Effective ideation requires a mix of divergent thinking (generating as many ideas as possible) and convergent thinking (filtering and refining). Here are the top methods a creative strategist can use to lead high-impact brainstorming sessions:

• Crazy Eights : A fast-paced sketching exercise where participants fold a piece of paper into eight rectangles and sketch eight distinct ideas in eight minutes (one minute per idea). It forces people to move past their first (often cliché) thought and embrace volume over perfection.
• SCAMPER : A prompt-based technique where you take an existing product, campaign, or idea and apply seven modification angles: Substitute, Combine, Adapt, Modify, Put to another use, Eliminate , and Reverse . It's brilliant for breaking out of a creative rut.
• Silent Brainstorming (Brainwriting) : Instead of shouting out ideas (which lets loud voices or hierarchy dominate), team members write their ideas down silently on sticky notes or a digital board for 5–10 minutes before grouping and discussing them. This ensures equal participation and reduces groupthink.
• How Might We (HMW) : A framing technique where core challenges are reframed into actionable, optimistic questions starting with "HMW..." (e.g., How might we make the onboarding experience feel like a game? ). It opens up broad avenues for solution-finding without locking the team into a single path too early.
• Worst Possible Idea (Reverse Brainstorming) : The team deliberately tries to come up with the absolute worst, most impractical, or most offensive ideas possible. By removing the pressure to be "good," it dissolves creative anxiety, sparks laughter, and can easily be flipped into clever, unconventional insights.
• The 6-3-5 Method : A structured brainwriting exercise where 6 people write 3 ideas each on a sheet in 5 minutes, then pass the sheet to the next person, who builds on or modifies those ideas. It cycles through the group until everyone has contributed to every sheet, yielding 108 interconnected ideas in roughly 30 minutes.

Would you like me to help you structure an agenda for an upcoming brainstorming workshop, or do you want to deep-dive into a specific method like SCAMPER for a live project?

As a creative strategist, effective brainstorming isn't just about throwing random post-it notes on a wall—it is about orchestrating tension, cultural insights, and diverse cognitive perspectives to land on disruptive, actionable ideas.

The most impactful frameworks used in modern creative strategy balance structural rigor with wild divergence:

Top Ideation Frameworks for Strategists

1. SCAMPER (For Deconstructing and Re-engineering)
   • Best for: Taking an existing product, campaign, or format and twisting it into something fresh.
   • How it works: You run the core concept through 7 prompts: S ubstitute, C ombine, A dapt, M odify, P ut to another use, E liminate, and R everse. It forces your brain out of status-quo thinking.
2. Reverse / Negative Brainstorming (For Breaking Barriers)
   • Best for: Overcoming mental blocks or stress-testing a brief when the team is stuck.
   • How it works: Instead of asking "How do we solve this challenge?" , ask "How could we intentionally make this problem 10x worse?" Once you map out all the terrible ways to fail, you invert those disastrous ideas into unexpected strategic solutions.
3. Six Thinking Hats (For Parallel Perspective Shifts)
   • Best for: Aligning cross-functional teams and preventing ego-driven arguments in a room.
   • How it works: The group wears the same "hat" at the same time—shifting collectively from pure data (white ), to gut emotions (red ), to critical risks (black ), to unbridled optimism (yellow ), and finally to pure generative creativity (green).
4. Crazy Eights (For Rapid-Fire Divergence)
   • Best for: Bypassing over-thinking and killing the "first idea" syndrome.
   • How it works: Fold a piece of paper into eight rectangles. Set a timer for 8 minutes and force every participant to sketch or write down 8 distinct concepts (1 minute per box). The constraint forces speed over perfection.
5. Starbursting (For Framing the Right Questions)
   • Best for: Pre-ideation alignment to ensure you are solving the right problem.
   • How it works: Put your central idea or campaign hook in the center of a star, and dedicate each point to a core question starting with Who, What, Where, When, Why, and How . You brainstorm questions, not answers, before building the creative.

Would you like a deep dive into how to structure a multi-stakeholder workshop agenda using one of these methods?

For a creative strategist, the strongest ideation sessions aren't really about “brainstorming harder.” They're about designing the right conditions and sequence so the team can expand possibilities, make unexpected connections, and then deliberately narrow toward strong strategic ideas.

A useful principle is: diverge first, converge second. Design-thinking practice explicitly separates generative/divergent thinking from analytical/convergent thinking; mixing them too early tends to make people self-censor or settle on the first plausible answer.

1. Start with a sharp creative challenge

Don't begin with:

“Let's brainstorm some campaign ideas.” Instead, frame the challenge around the audience and desired change:

“How might we make [audience] feel that [brand/product] is the easiest way to [desired outcome]?” Or deliberately change the frame:

• How might we make this 10× more surprising?
• How might we solve this without advertising?
• What would this look like if budget weren't a constraint?
• How could we make the audience participate rather than watch?
• What would a competitor from a completely different category do?

A well-defined challenge gives creativity something to push against.

2. Use brainwriting before open discussion

One of my favorite methods for strategy teams is silent ideation first.

Give everyone 5–10 minutes to independently write ideas before anyone talks. Then share and build on them.

This prevents the loudest or most senior person from establishing the direction too early and gives quieter thinkers equal space.

A simple format:

1. 5 minutes — individual ideas.
2. 5 minutes — everyone posts ideas.
3. 10 minutes — group clusters related ideas.
4. 15 minutes — combine and mutate the strongest clusters.
5. 10 minutes — select directions.

The basic principle is supported by IDEO's emphasis on generating lots of ideas before judging them.

3. Use “How Might We?” questions

When the team is stuck, don't ask for ideas. Ask a better question.

For example:

Problem: People think the category is boring.

Instead of:

“How do we make our brand more exciting?” Try:

• How might we make boring feel rebellious?
• How might we turn the category into entertainment?
• How might we make people discover the product accidentally?
• How might we make customers the protagonists?
• How might we make the absence of the product interesting?

One strategic insight can produce dozens of creative territories when you keep reframing the question.

4. Use SCAMPER to force new territory

SCAMPER is particularly useful when you're iterating on an existing concept rather than starting from zero. It asks you to:

• Substitute
• Combine
• Adapt
• Modify
• Put to another use
• Eliminate
• Reverse

For example, take a traditional product launch and ask:

What could we reverse about a launch? What could we eliminate? What could we combine with something completely unexpected? What could we adapt from another industry? The value is that you're no longer waiting for inspiration—you've created prompts that force the brain to explore different dimensions.

5. Use forced connections

This is especially powerful for a creative strategist, because strategy often becomes more interesting when ideas cross categories.

Pick an unrelated stimulus:

• A nightclub
• A museum
• A dating app
• A political campaign
• A video game
• A luxury hotel
• A street protest
• A subscription service

Then ask:

“What could our brand learn from this?” For example:

Brand problem: Get Gen Z to care about insurance.

Stimulus: Video games.

Potential territory:

Insurance becomes a “loadout” that protects different aspects of your life. The goal isn't necessarily to copy the stimulus. It's to import its behavioral logic.

6. Try “worst possible idea”

This is fantastic when the room is overly cautious.

Ask:

“What is the absolute worst campaign we could make?” People suddenly become very creative.

You'll get things like:

• terrible slogans
• absurd partnerships
• ridiculous executions
• obvious clichés
• wildly inappropriate channels

Then reverse them:

“What's the interesting insight hiding inside that terrible idea?” It works because the team temporarily removes the pressure to be clever or correct.

7. Use analogy mining

Ask:

“Who has already solved a problem like this?” Not necessarily in your industry.

For example:

Challenge: Make people wait excitedly for a product.

Look at:

• Disney
• Apple
• sneaker drops
• concert tickets
• luxury fashion
• gaming
• restaurants
• theme parks

Then identify the underlying mechanism rather than copying the execution.

This can lead to much more distinctive strategy because you're borrowing patterns, not campaigns.

8. Make the session visual

Don't let the brainstorm become a two-hour conversation.

Get ideas out of people's heads and onto a wall—physical or digital.

Use:

• sticky notes
• rough sketches
• headlines
• screenshots
• moodboards
• diagrams
• customer journeys
• memes
• images
• competitor examples

IDEO specifically recommends making ideas visual, alongside deferring judgment, building on others' ideas, and going for quantity.

A terrible sketch can actually communicate an idea better than five minutes of explanation.

9. Separate “generate” from “judge”

This may be the most important facilitation technique.

Don't do this:

Idea → critique → defense → another idea → critique → exhaustion. Instead:

Divergence

“Give me 50 possibilities.”

Clustering

“What patterns are emerging?”

Expansion

“What else could each territory become?”

Convergence

“Which territories have strategic potential?”

Refinement

“How could we make those territories extraordinary?”

IDEO's core rules explicitly recommend deferring judgment, encouraging wild ideas, building on others' ideas, and prioritizing quantity.

10. Use constraints deliberately

Counterintuitively, constraints can make ideation better.

Try:

• “You have $0.”
• “It can't be an ad.”
• “It must happen in the real world.”
• “It must involve customers.”
• “It has to fit into one sentence.”
• “It has to happen within 24 hours.”
• “It can't use social media.”
• “It has to be something people would voluntarily share.”

Then remove the constraint and see which ideas survive.

11. End with strategic selection—not a popularity contest

Don't simply ask:

“Which idea do we like?” Score concepts against predetermined criteria such as:

This turns ideation into strategic decision-making, rather than a vote for whoever had the most charismatic idea.

A strong 60-minute format

If I were facilitating a creative-strategy session, I'd use something like this:

0–5 min — Frame Define the challenge, audience, insight and desired outcome.

5–10 min — Stimulate Introduce cultural references, provocative questions, examples or an unexpected stimulus.

10–20 min — Silent divergence Everyone generates ideas independently.

20–30 min — Share + build Combine, remix and extend ideas. No criticism yet.

30–40 min — Forced creativity Run SCAMPER, “worst idea,” constraints or analogy prompts.

40–50 min — Cluster Identify emerging territories rather than individual executions.

50–57 min — Converge Evaluate territories against strategic criteria.

57–60 min — Define next steps Choose 2–3 territories to develop—not necessarily one final answer.

That structure preserves the most important distinction: the first half is about increasing the number and diversity of possibilities; the second is about increasing their quality and strategic relevance.

The bigger strategic lesson

The best creative strategists don't rely on one “killer brainstorming technique.” They build an ideation system:

Insight → provocative question → divergent thinking → unexpected stimulus → recombination → strategic filtering → development.

And they deliberately protect the divergent phase from premature criticism. IDEO's current brainstorming guidance still emphasizes exactly this combination of psychological openness, visual thinking, collaboration and quantity.

If you're running these sessions professionally, I'd particularly prioritize brainwriting + How Might We + forced connections/analogies + SCAMPER + structured convergence. That combination gives you much more range than simply putting ten people in a room and saying “come up with ideas.”

A creative strategist’s best brainstorming sessions usually combine divergent thinking (generating many possibilities) with structured frameworks (turning ideas into useful concepts). The goal is not just “more ideas,” but better strategic options that connect to audiences, culture, business goals, and execution realities.

1. Start with a strong creative brief and “How Might We” questions

Avoid starting with:

“What ideas do we have?” Start with a reframed challenge:

• “How might we make people feel differently about this category?”
• “How might we turn a product feature into a cultural moment?”
• “How might we solve the audience’s hidden frustration?”

A strong problem frame creates a more productive creative space.

2. Use the 6–3–5 Brainwriting method

Instead of letting the loudest voices dominate:

1. Give 6 people a prompt.
2. Each person writes 3 ideas.
3. After 5 minutes, ideas rotate and others build on them.

Why it works:

• Encourages quieter contributors.
• Reduces early criticism.
• Creates idea combinations.

This is especially useful for strategy teams where everyone has different expertise.

3. Run a SCAMPER session for existing ideas

SCAMPER helps transform a familiar concept by forcing different perspectives: Substitute, Combine, Adapt, Modify, Put to another use, Eliminate, and Reverse.

Example for a campaign idea:

• Substitute: What if we replaced celebrity endorsement with community creators?
• Combine: What if the campaign became a game or experience?
• Adapt: What can we borrow from another industry?
• Modify: What if we made it 10x bigger or radically smaller?
• Eliminate: What can we remove to make it simpler?
• Reverse: What if the audience created the brand story?

Great for:

• Campaign refreshes
• Brand repositioning
• Product innovation

4. Use cultural tension mapping

Creative strategists often find stronger ideas by identifying tensions:

Audience desire vs. current reality

Examples:

• People want convenience → but distrust automation.
• People want individuality → but follow trends.
• People want sustainability → but prioritize affordability.

The strongest concepts often live inside these contradictions.

5. Try “Worst Possible Idea” brainstorming

Ask:

“What is the worst campaign we could possibly create?” Examples:

• “How could we make customers hate this brand?”
• “How could we make this product irrelevant?”

Then reverse the answers.

This lowers pressure and often reveals assumptions that need challenging.

6. Use analogy and cross-industry inspiration

Ask:

• “If this brand were a movie, what genre would it be?”
• “How would a luxury brand solve this?”
• “How would a startup solve this?”
• “How would a teenager solve this?”
• “How would this work in another country?”

Borrowing patterns from unrelated fields is a powerful creativity trigger.

7. Build moodboards and stimulus walls

Before generating ideas, immerse the team in:

• Visual references
• Consumer quotes
• Trends
• Competitor examples
• Cultural moments
• Art, fashion, technology, entertainment

Good stimulus creates better associations than a blank page.

8. Use rapid sketching

Have everyone create rough concepts quickly:

• 8 ideas in 8 minutes (“Crazy 8s” style)
• One-page campaign sketches
• Storyboards
• Customer journey sketches

The objective is exploration, not polished design.

9. Separate idea generation from evaluation

A common mistake is judging too early.

Use two phases:

Divergence

• Quantity over quality
• No criticism
• Build on others’ ideas

Convergence

• Group ideas
• Score against criteria: - Strategic fit
• Audience relevance
• Distinctiveness
• Feasibility
• Emotional impact

10. End with a concept development sprint

The best ideas need refinement.

For each shortlisted idea, define:

• The human insight
• The cultural tension
• The big idea
• The emotional payoff
• The execution possibilities
• The reason it matters now

A useful template:

Because people believe/feel ______, we will help them ______ by creating ______.

A sample 90-minute creative strategy session

0–10 min: Review brief + audience insight 10–20 min: Cultural tension mapping 20–40 min: Individual idea generation 40–55 min: SCAMPER expansion 55–70 min: Group clustering and naming themes 70–85 min: Develop top 3 concepts 85–90 min: Select next steps

The strongest creative strategists rarely rely on a single brainstorming technique—they create a system that moves from insight → exploration → transformation → selection → concept development.

The best ideas need refinement.

For each shortlisted idea, define:

• The human insight
• The cultural tension
• The big idea
• The emotional payoff
• The execution possibilities
• The reason it matters now

A useful template:

Because people believe/feel ______, we will help them ______ by creating ______.

A sample 90-minute creative strategy session

0–10 min: Review brief + audience insight 10–20 min: Cultural tension mapping 20–40 min: Individual idea generation 40–55 min: SCAMPER expansion 55–70 min: Group clustering and naming themes 70–85 min: Develop top 3 concepts 85–90 min: Select next steps

The strongest creative strategists rarely rely on a single brainstorming technique—they create a system that moves from insight → exploration → transformation → selection → concept development.

Effective brainstorming and ideation for a creative strategist require a blend of divergent thinking (generating volume) and convergent thinking (filtering for strategic impact).

Here are the best methods broken down by phase and approach:

1. Provocation and Reversal (SCAMPER)

• Substitute: Change components, materials, or people.
• Combine: Merge two unrelated ideas or product features.
• Adapt: Take a concept from another industry and apply it to your challenge.
• Modify/Magnify: Exaggerate a feature or scale up/down.
• Put to another use: How would a completely different audience use this?
• Eliminate: Strip the core idea down to its bare minimum.
• Reverse: Flip the problem entirely (e.g., "How do we make people hate this brand?" to uncover hidden assumptions).

2. Conceptual Frameworks

• Crazy Eights: Fold a paper into eight rectangles and sketch or write eight distinct ideas in eight minutes. Forces speed and prevents over-editing.
• How Now / Wow Matrix: Plot ideas on a 2 × 2 grid measuring Originality (Novelty) vs. Feasibility (Ease of Execution). Categorize into Rational/Standard (Now), Moonshots (Wow), and Trash/Revisit (How).
• Lotus Blossom: Put a core strategic problem in the center box of a 3 × 3 grid, surround it with 8 sub-themes, and then use those 8 sub-themes as centers for new 3 × 3 grids to expand the scope systematically.

3. Empathy and Audience-Driven Ideation

• Worst Possible Idea: Ask the room to generate the absolute worst, most illegal, or most cringe-worthy ideas first. It breaks the tension, eliminates the fear of judgment, and often sparks the opposite "good" insight.
• Persona Roleplay: Force the team to ideate from the extreme edges of your target audience (e.g., "How would a hyper-skeptical Gen Z consumer tear this campaign apart?").

Community Perspectives

Strategists and creators often note that psychological safety and structured constraints matter more than the raw tool itself.

I found that starting with the worst possible idea completely shifts the room's energy and removes the pressure of being clever.

SCAMPER forces you out of a creative rut because it gives your brain a specific mechanical lever to pull instead of staring at a blank wall.

If you'd like, I can:

• Detail how to run a 60-minute workshop using these methods
• Share tips on managing difficult stakeholders during ideation
• Help you apply one of these to a specific brief or problem you're facing

Let me know what you want to focus on next.

For a creative strategist, the best ideation sessions aren't simply about generating more ideas. They're about creating the conditions for different, strategically relevant ideas, then knowing how to turn the strongest ones into concepts worth pursuing.

I’d use a diverge → stretch → converge system, combining several methods rather than relying on one brainstorming technique.

1. Start with a strong “How Might We?” question

Before brainstorming, reframe the brief into an open-ended opportunity.

Instead of:

“How do we get more people to use our product?” Try:

“How might we make using our product feel irresistible to someone who doesn't think they need it?” A good prompt should be:

• Specific enough to focus people.
• Open enough to permit unexpected answers.
• Framed around the audience/problem, rather than a predetermined solution.

This is arguably the strategist's most important contribution to the session: the quality of the question determines the quality of the idea space.

2. Use individual ideation before group discussion

Don't immediately ask, “What ideas do we have?”

That tends to reward whoever is fastest, loudest, or most senior.

Instead, give everyone 5–10 minutes of silent ideation first. Brainwriting is particularly effective because everyone generates ideas simultaneously and can subsequently build on others' thinking. The classic 6-3-5 format has six participants generate three ideas every five minutes, passing them around for successive rounds.

This is especially useful when:

• You have senior/junior power dynamics.
• One or two people tend to dominate.
• The team is remote.
• You need a lot of raw material quickly.

3. Force multiple perspectives

Once you have the obvious ideas, deliberately change the lens.

For example, ask:

• What would Apple do?
• What would a luxury brand do?
• What would a teenager do?
• What would a comedian do?
• What would we do if we had $0?
• What if we had $10 million?
• What if the idea had to happen entirely offline?
• What if we couldn't mention the product?
• What if we had to make it controversial?
• What if we had to make it ridiculously simple?

This is essentially constraint-driven creativity: instead of asking the brain to “be creative,” you give it a new set of rules to work against.

4. Use SCAMPER to mutate existing ideas

When the team has a handful of decent ideas but isn't getting to anything exciting, don't start over.

Take an existing idea and ask:

• S — Substitute: What could we replace?
• C — Combine: What two things could we merge?
• A — Adapt: What could we borrow from another category?
• M — Modify: What could we exaggerate?
• P — Put to another use: Could this solve another problem?
• E — Eliminate: What could we remove?
• R — Reverse/Rearrange: What happens if we do the opposite?

This is particularly good for creative strategy because you can take a strategically sound but ordinary territory and systematically push it toward something more distinctive.

5. Use “Yes, and…” — then deliberately use “No, but…”

Early in ideation, “Yes, and…” prevents premature criticism.

“What if the campaign was a fictional customer-support hotline?” “Yes, and what if the hotline actually became the campaign?” Later, switch modes:

“What if we couldn't use advertising at all?” “No—but what if we could turn customers themselves into the media?” That transition matters. Divergent thinking needs psychological permission; convergent thinking needs critical judgment.

6. Try Six Thinking Hats for strategic depth

Edward de Bono's Six Thinking Hats is useful when a team keeps approaching a problem from the same perspective.

You deliberately separate modes of thinking:

• ⚪ White: What do we actually know?
• 🔴 Red: What does our audience feel?
• ⚫ Black: Why might this fail?
• 🟡 Yellow: What's exciting about it?
• 🟢 Green: What other possibilities exist?
• 🔵 Blue: What are we actually trying to accomplish?

The value isn't necessarily in literally wearing six hats; it's in preventing the team from mixing critique, emotion, facts, and invention at the same moment.

7. Use “bad ideas” as a creative warm-up

Ask:

“What is the worst possible idea we could come up with?” Generate 10 terrible ideas.

Then ask:

“What makes each one terrible?” And finally:

“Could we reverse any of those characteristics?” This lowers the pressure to produce a brilliant idea immediately and often reveals interesting strategic territory.

For example:

Terrible idea: Make customers sit through a 45-minute product tutorial.

→ Why terrible? Too long, boring, demanding.

→ Reverse it:

Potential idea: Create a product experience that teaches the customer something valuable in 45 seconds.

The point isn't the terrible idea itself; it's using it to escape conventional thinking.

8. Introduce “creative provocations”

Instead of asking for solutions, give the team deliberately provocative statements:

“The product should disappear.” “The campaign should work without the brand name.” “Make the audience the protagonist.” “Turn the problem into the entertainment.” “What if our competitor disappeared tomorrow?” “What if we weren't allowed to advertise?” Then ask the team to respond.

This is one of my favorite techniques for creative strategy, because it connects abstract strategy with concrete creative possibilities.

9. Separate ideation from evaluation

A common mistake is:

Idea → “That won't work.” → next idea. Instead, run two distinct phases.

Diverge

Generate as many possibilities as possible.

Converge

Then evaluate them against strategic criteria.

For example, score each idea from 1–5 on:

Importantly, don't evaluate too early. Research on structured ideation methods such as 6-3-5 emphasizes separating the generation process from later clustering and prioritization.

10. Finish with concept development, not voting

Don't end the session with:

“Everyone put a dot next to your favorite idea.” Instead, take the top 3–5 territories and ask:

“If this were the answer, what could it become?”

For each idea, develop:

• Core insight
• Strategic proposition
• Big idea
• Why people would care
• Brand role
• Potential executions
• What makes it ownable
• What would make it 10× more interesting?

That last question is particularly powerful.

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A creative strategist's ideal 90-minute session

I'd structure it something like this:

0–10 min — Frame Share the brief, audience insight, tension and “How Might We?” question.

10–20 min — Individual thinking Everyone independently generates ideas.

20–35 min — Brainwriting / build-on Participants expand and mutate one another's ideas. The 6-3-5 technique is a particularly structured version of this.

35–50 min — Provocations Run 3–5 radically different lenses:

• What if we had no media budget?
• What if the audience created it?
• What would the category never dare to do?
• What would the opposite strategy look like?

50–65 min — Group exploration Cluster ideas into territories and identify emerging patterns.

65–75 min — Stretch Take the strongest territories and ask: “What's the more unexpected version?”

75–85 min — Converge Score against strategic criteria.

85–90 min — Commit Select 2–3 concepts and define exactly what happens next.

The bigger principle

The best creative strategists don't necessarily run the most energetic brainstorming sessions.

They create a system in which:

Good brief → diverse perspectives → lots of ideas → deliberate disruption → strategic filtering → stronger concepts.

And I'd particularly avoid the classic “let's get everyone in a room and throw ideas around for an hour” approach. Structured methods such as brainwriting exist precisely because unstructured verbal brainstorming can allow dominant voices and turn-taking to constrain participation.

If you're leading these sessions professionally, the real skill is knowing which ideation method to deploy for the specific problem—not memorizing a long list of brainstorming games.

The point isn't the terrible idea itself; it's using it to escape conventional thinking.

8. Introduce “creative provocations”

Instead of asking for solutions, give the team deliberately provocative statements:

“The product should disappear.” “The campaign should work without the brand name.” “Make the audience the protagonist.” “Turn the problem into the entertainment.” “What if our competitor disappeared tomorrow?” “What if we weren't allowed to advertise?” Then ask the team to respond.

This is one of my favorite techniques for creative strategy, because it connects abstract strategy with concrete creative possibilities.

9. Separate ideation from evaluation

A common mistake is:

Idea → “That won't work.” → next idea. Instead, run two distinct phases.

Diverge

Generate as many possibilities as possible.

Converge

Then evaluate them against strategic criteria.

For example, score each idea from 1–5 on:

Importantly, don't evaluate too early. Research on structured ideation methods such as 6-3-5 emphasizes separating the generation process from later clustering and prioritization.

10. Finish with concept development, not voting

Don't end the session with:

“Everyone put a dot next to your favorite idea.” Instead, take the top 3–5 territories and ask:

“If this were the answer, what could it become?”

For each idea, develop:

Creative ideation requires a blend of structure and chaos. Here are the top methods a creative strategist can use to run high-impact brainstorming sessions:

• Crazy Eights : A fast-paced sketching exercise where participants fold a paper into eight rectangles and must sketch eight distinct ideas in eight minutes. It forces speed and stops people from overthinking early concepts.
• SCAMPER : A prompt-based technique that asks participants to S ubstitute, C ombine, A dapt, M odify, P ut to another use, E liminate, and R everse an existing product, campaign, or strategy to spark unexpected angles.
• Brainwriting (6-3-5 Method) : Six people write down three ideas each in five minutes, then pass the paper to the next person, who builds on those ideas. This eliminates the loudest-voice-in-the-room bias and gives introverts equal space.
• Worst Possible Idea (Reverse Brainstorming) : Instead of asking for good ideas, ask the room to generate the absolute worst, most disastrous ideas possible. It breaks the tension, lowers the fear of judgment, and makes it easy to flip those terrible concepts into clever insights.
• How Might We (HMW) : Framing core problems as design challenges starting with "How might we..." This opens up the aperture for exploration without locking the team into a single preconceived solution too early.
• The Disney Method : Moving the team through three distinct psychological roles one after the other: The Dreamer (unfiltered, wild imagination), the Realist (how to make it practical), and the Critic (finding the flaws and stress-testing).

Would you like me to dive deeper into how to structure a 60-minute agenda for one of these methods, or do you need help tailoring them for a remote vs. in-person team?

As a creative strategist , running an effective brainstorming and ideation session isn't about sitting in a room waiting for lightning to strike—it’s about engineering the conditions for breakthrough thinking. The best methods combine strategic rigor with divergent, messy creativity.

Here are the top methods used by leading strategists to drive high-impact ideation:

• Crazy Eights : A fast-paced sketching exercise where participants fold a piece of paper into eight rectangles and have just 8 minutes (1 minute per panel) to sketch or write eight distinct ideas. This forces speed and stops people from over-editing their initial thoughts.
• SCAMPER : A prompt-based technique where you take an existing product, campaign, or framework and systematically apply seven lenses: S ubstitute, C ombine, A dapt, M odify, P ut to another use, E liminate, and R everse. It’s a bulletproof way to iterate on tired concepts.
• How Might We (HMW) : Framing your core strategic challenges as open-ended questions starting with "How might we..." This shifts the mindset from a dead-end problem statement into an invitation for collaborative problem-solving.
• Worst Possible Idea (Reverse Brainstorming) : Ask the room to intentionally generate the absolute worst, most disastrous, or most unfeasible ideas possible. It instantly breaks the ice, relieves the pressure of "sounding smart," and often uncovers hidden assumptions you can flip into brilliant solutions.
• Silent Brainwriting (Brainswarming) : Instead of shouting out ideas (which lets the loudest voices dominate), team members write ideas silently on sticky notes or a shared digital board for 10 minutes, then group and build on them together. This guarantees equal input from introverts and extroverts alike.

If you want, I can:

Provide a step-by-step agenda for a 60-minute ideation workshop Share tips on how to filter and prioritize the ideas after the session Give examples of how to handle difficult or dominant personalities in the room

For a creative strategist, the best ideation sessions usually aren't about simply “getting everyone to brainstorm.” They’re about creating the right conditions for divergent thinking, then deliberately narrowing toward strategically useful ideas.

I’d use a mix of these methods:

1. Start with a sharp “How Might We?” question

Before generating anything, reframe the challenge as an opportunity.

Instead of:

“How do we make this campaign better?” Try:

“How might we make people feel that this brand understands them before they even realize they have a need?” A good prompt should be specific enough to create direction, but open enough to permit surprising answers. SAP, for example, recommends establishing a clear problem statement before beginning 6-3-5 brainwriting.

Strategist's trick: Create 3–5 different framings of the same problem and brainstorm against each one. You'll often discover that the framing, rather than the ideation technique, is the biggest source of breakthrough ideas.

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2. Brainwriting before brainstorming

This is one of my strongest recommendations for teams.

Instead of immediately asking everyone to shout ideas into the room, give people 5–10 minutes to generate ideas silently and independently.

The classic 6-3-5 method has six people write three ideas in five minutes, then pass them to another participant, who builds on them. A complete cycle can generate up to 108 idea entries in about 30 minutes.

Why it's valuable:

• Everyone contributes.
• Senior/loud personalities don't dominate.
• People don't have to wait for their turn.
• Participants can build on ideas rather than merely react to whoever spoke last.
• It creates a much larger raw pool before the group starts judging.

Research comparing ideation approaches has found advantages for structured brainwriting, including hybrid 6-3-5 approaches.

Best for: campaign concepts, positioning, product ideas, content territories, brand activations.

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3. SCAMPER for pushing beyond the obvious

When the team has already generated some ideas but they're feeling predictable, use SCAMPER.

Take an existing idea and ask:

• S — Substitute: What could we replace?
• C — Combine: What could we merge?
• A — Adapt: What could we borrow from somewhere else?
• M — Modify: What could we exaggerate, shrink, amplify, or change?
• P — Put to another use: Could this solve a completely different problem?
• E — Eliminate: What could we remove?
• R — Rearrange: What happens if we reverse the sequence or assumptions?

SCAMPER is specifically designed as a set of provocative lenses for transforming existing products, services, problems, or ideas.

Example: If you're brainstorming a coffee brand campaign:

“What if we eliminate the coffee?” That seemingly ridiculous question could lead to an idea about the ritual, conversation, productivity, or social identity surrounding coffee rather than the beverage itself.

That's often where strategic creativity gets interesting.

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4. “Worst idea first”

This is particularly useful when a team is being overly cautious.

Ask everyone to intentionally generate:

“What is the worst possible idea we could launch?” Give them 3–5 minutes.

Then ask:

“What makes these ideas terrible?” And finally:

“Is there anything inside these terrible ideas that could actually be interesting?” It lowers evaluation anxiety and gets people comfortable being unconventional.

You can also reverse it:

“What would we do if we weren't allowed to be boring?”

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5. Constraint-based ideation

Counterintuitively, constraints can make brainstorming better.

Instead of:

“Come up with a campaign.” Try:

• The campaign can't use video.
• It has to cost less than $10K.
• It must work without paid media.
• It has to be understandable in five seconds.
• It must involve customers.
• It can only use one visual asset.
• It must work globally.
• It has to make people physically do something.

Then generate ideas.

Research on Six Thinking Hats has also found that structured thinking modes and time pressure can increase the number and flexibility of ideas.

Strategic benefit: Constraints force the team to solve the actual problem instead of producing generic “big ideas.”

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6. Borrow from another category

One of my favorite techniques for strategists is cross-industry inspiration.

Ask:

“How would [Netflix / Nike / a luxury hotel / a gaming company / a political campaign / a museum / a streetwear brand] solve this?” Then deliberately transfer the principle—not the execution.

For example:

“What could a luxury hotel teach us about onboarding users?” You aren't copying hospitality. You're looking for behavioral or experience principles that can be transplanted into your problem.

This is especially powerful for brand strategy because it breaks the team out of category conventions.

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7. Six Thinking Hats for perspective switching

Once you have ideas, deliberately force the group to look at them from different perspectives.

The classic framework uses different “hats” for different modes of thinking—for example, factual analysis, emotion, caution, and optimism.

For a creative strategy session, I might simplify it to:

• Data: What does the evidence tell us?
• Human: Would anyone actually care?
• Dream: What could this become if we went much bigger?
• Risk: Why might this fail?
• Brand: Does this feel uniquely us?
• Provocation: What would make it 10× more interesting?

This is particularly useful after divergent ideation, because it prevents the team from killing an idea prematurely with one person's criticism.

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8. Crazy 8s / rapid visual ideation

Give everyone a sheet divided into eight sections.

8 minutes. 8 ideas.

One minute per idea.

Crucially, ask people to sketch rather than explain.

This works particularly well for:

• Campaign executions
• Social concepts
• Packaging
• Experiences
• Digital products
• Visual identities
• Content formats

The time constraint prevents people from polishing their first idea for 20 minutes.

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9. “And / or” rather than “Yes, but”

During the generative phase, establish one rule:

Don't say “yes, but.” Say “yes, and…” or “what if…” “That's impossible because…” is useful later.

During divergence, it kills momentum.

For example:

Person A: “What if the brand let customers design the product?”

Person B: “That would be operationally impossible.”

Instead:

Person B: “What if customers could design the next campaign instead?”

Now you're building rather than defending.

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10. Forced connections

Put two unrelated concepts together and make the team find the connection.

For example:

Luxury brand × TikTok creator economy Banking × dating apps Fast food × subscription services Museum × gaming Then ask:

“What principle from A could fundamentally change B?” This is excellent for finding unexpected strategic territories, rather than simply generating executions.

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11. Diverge → cluster → evaluate → develop

This is probably the most important overall structure.

Don't mix ideation and evaluation.

A strong session looks like:

Phase 1 — Frame

10–15 min

Define the problem, audience, insight and creative challenge.

Phase 2 — Diverge

20–40 min

Brainwriting, SCAMPER, Crazy 8s, provocations, forced connections.

No judging.

Phase 3 — Cluster

10–15 min

Group similar ideas into territories.

You'll often discover that 50 ideas actually represent 5–7 underlying concepts.

Phase 4 — Converge

15–20 min

Evaluate against explicit criteria:

• Strategic relevance
• Audience relevance
• Distinctiveness
• Brand fit
• Feasibility
• Cultural potential
• Ability to scale

Research on team creativity emphasizes that generating ideas isn't enough; teams also need effective processes for evaluating and selecting them.

Phase 5 — Develop

Take the best 2–3 territories and ask:

“How could we make this dramatically more interesting?” That's where the strategist becomes particularly valuable.

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A high-performing 60-minute session

If I were facilitating a creative strategy workshop, I'd probably run:

0–10 min — Context + challenge Share the insight, audience tension and “How Might We?”

10–15 min — Individual provocation Everyone independently writes 5 ideas.

15–25 min — 6-3-5-style brainwriting Build on each other's ideas silently.

25–35 min — Provocation round Use SCAMPER + constraints + “worst idea.”

35–45 min — Cluster Group ideas into strategic territories.

45–52 min — Vote Everyone independently selects their strongest concepts.

52–60 min — Develop Take the top 2–3 and turn them into rough creative territories.

The key principle is:

Don't ask people to “be creative.” Give them different cognitive jobs. Generate → distort → combine → challenge → cluster → choose → develop.

That's much more reliable than putting six people around a table and saying, “Okay, guys, any ideas?”

“What principle from A could fundamentally change B?” This is excellent for finding unexpected strategic territories, rather than simply generating executions.

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11. Diverge → cluster → evaluate → develop

This is probably the most important overall structure.

Don't mix ideation and evaluation.

A strong session looks like:

Phase 1 — Frame

10–15 min

Define the problem, audience, insight and creative challenge.

Phase 2 — Diverge

20–40 min

Brainwriting, SCAMPER, Crazy 8s, provocations, forced connections.

No judging.

Phase 3 — Cluster

10–15 min

Group similar ideas into territories.

You'll often discover that 50 ideas actually represent 5–7 underlying concepts.

Phase 4 — Converge

15–20 min

Evaluate against explicit criteria:

• Strategic relevance
• Audience relevance
• Distinctiveness
• Brand fit
• Feasibility
• Cultural potential
• Ability to scale

Research on team creativity emphasizes that generating ideas isn't enough; teams also need effective processes for evaluating and selecting them.