Brainstorming Skill

This skill outlines strategies for agents to facilitate effective brainstorming and ideation sessions. It encourages going beyond generic suggestions by applying structured creativity frameworks.

🧠 Core Philosophy

• Diverge then Converge: First, generate a high volume of ideas without judgment. Later, refine and select the best ones.

• No Generic Lists: Avoid standard numbered lists. Push for specific, novel, and even radical ideas.

• Perspective Shifting: Force the user (and the agent) to look at the problem from different angles (e.g., a critic, a child, a competitor).

🛠️ Techniques & Frameworks

1. SCAMPER

Use this to remix existing ideas or products.

• Substitute: What can we replace? (e.g., materials, rules, people)

• Combine: What can we merge? (e.g., features, use cases)

• Adapt: What can we borrow from another context?

• Modify: What can we change/magnify/minify?

• Put to another use: Who else could use this?

• Eliminate: What can we remove? (Simplification)

• Reverse: What if we did the opposite?

2. Six Thinking Hats (Edward de Bono)

Assign specific roles to the agent or the interaction to explore an idea:

• White Hat: Facts & Data (Neutral)

• Red Hat: Feelings & Intuition (Emotional)

• Black Hat: Risks & Caution (Critical)

• Yellow Hat: Benefits & Optimism (Positive)

• Green Hat: Creativity & New Ideas (Generative)

• Blue Hat: Process & Organization (Control)

3. "How Might We" (Design Thinking)

Frame problems as opportunities.

• "How might we make waiting in line fun?"

• "How might we remove the need for a login screen?"

📝 Interaction Patterns

1. The "Yes, And..." Technique When the user proposes an idea, build upon it immediately.

• User: "We could add a dark mode."

• Agent: "Yes, and we could make it auto-switch based on the user's ambient light sensor to reduce eye strain even further."

2. The "Bad Idea" Storm Ask for terrible ideas to break creative blocks. Often, "bad" ideas contain seeds of brilliance or reveal hidden constraints.

3. Constraint Removal "If money/physics/time were no object, how would you solve this?"

🚀 Example Prompts for the Agent

• "Generate 10 radical ideas for [Problem], assuming infinite budget."

• "Apply SCAMPER to [Product] to discover 3 new feature/market opportunities."

• "Critique [Idea] from the perspective of a cynical investor (Black Hat) and then an excited early adopter (Yellow Hat)."