There is a scene I often see in meetings: someone makes a new suggestion, someone else immediately asks about the cost, and a third person starts explaining why it was not done last year. A few minutes later, everyone is circling the familiar options again. Often, developing a suggestion and judging it happen at the same time, leaving little room for new ideas.
Options first, decisions second
Divergent thinking looks for different answers to a problem. Listening to different people describe a need, reversing a familiar assumption, or looking at how another industry has addressed the same difficulty can broaden the options. At this stage, ideas may be incomplete or even a little absurd. A suggestion that cannot work in its original form may reveal a useful part of another idea.
Convergent thinking focuses on the choice and the reasoning behind it. Which customer need does this idea address? Which organizational capability does it draw on? Which assumption, if wrong, would make it unworkable? Comparing options through these questions helps distinguish the proposal argued for most loudly from the one worth pursuing.
Moving between the two stages
In strategic idea generation, these two stages follow one another, with a return to the earlier stage when needed. For example, we might identify three options and test the most uncertain aspect of each through a small trial. If the trial reveals a new need, we open up the options again. For an idea to become a project, it must also be clear which question it will answer and what needs to be tested first.
In our own work, we make the separation between generating and selecting ideas visible to everyone. When gathering ideas, we set aside a period without criticism and try to understand what a suggestion changes before saying, "that won't work." At the selection stage, we write down criteria such as customer need, capability, and risk in advance. Then we test the most uncertain aspect of each of the three selected ideas in a short trial. This work allows the team to explain which option it is committing resources to and why.
