⭐️ Ideate phase
The purpose of your brainstorming is that it should generate many, wide-ranging ideas. That’s the easy part.
The hard part is selecting which ideas to act on. Brainstorm selection may be straight forward for some brainstorms (simply pick a few standout ideas), but selecting design solutions may take more deliberation.
Don’t pick just one and don’t settle on safe choices. Select a range of ideas to carry forward into prototyping, aiming to preserve the breadth of solutions generated by the group.
How to select brainstorm ideas
Don’t narrow down ideas too fast. An implausible idea may spark a useful or meaningful insight. Hang onto ideas that excite, amuse, or intrigue the team.
Consider these brainstorming selection techniques:
Post-it voting
Each team member gets three votes. The post-its with the most marks get selected.
Four categories
Elect one or two ideas within each category: the rational choice, the most likely to delight, the darling, and the long shot.
Bingo
Pick one or two ideas that inspire a physical prototype, a digital prototype, and an experience prototype.
If an idea is so far out there that it seems pointless to test, ask what attracted you to it, then test that aspect or integrate it into a new solution.
Credit
design thinking bootleg by d.school at Stanford University