ideate

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name: ideate description: Generate and filter ideas into vetted options

Follow these steps:

1. Seed

Decompose the opportunity, then establish:

• The opportunity: what could be better?
• Hard constraints: truly non-negotiable (timeline, budget, technical limits, values)
• Soft preferences: nice but not required
• Success criteria: how you'll recognize a good idea

Announce constraints — they become the step 4 filter.

2. Diverge

Generate many raw ideas without evaluating. Quantity over quality. Work through:

• SCAMPER: Substitute, Combine, Adapt, Modify, Put to other uses, Eliminate, Reverse
• Lateral thinking: break conventions, seek distant analogies
• Inversion: flip assumptions
• Constraint manipulation: add/remove constraints as catalysts
• Wonder-driven: follow curiosity and what-ifs

Present as a numbered list with one-line descriptions.

3. Cluster

Group ideas by underlying pattern — shared mechanism, same part of the problem, similar resources, or variations of each other. Reduce to a handful of named clusters, each a distinct strategic direction.

4. Filter

Check each cluster against the hard constraints: timeline, resources, technical viability, organizational fit. Be ruthless — don't soften constraints to save appealing ideas. Mark each: Feasible / Conditional (needs X) / Eliminated (fails Y).

5. Refine

For each surviving cluster: select the strongest variant, sketch how it works, identify the key risk, and note what makes it distinct. Enough detail to compare, not full plans.

6. Hand off

Present the refined options:

**Option [N]: [Name]**
- Approach: [one sentence]
- Strengths: [what it does well]
- Key risk: [main thing that could go wrong]
- Requires: [key dependencies]

Suggest next steps: clear trade-offs → weigh options; many factors → priority matrix; high stakes → premortem; stakeholder complexity → perspective shift.