Divergent Ideation

The Divergent Ideation domain. 5 frameworks in this family. Each is graded honestly; see the evidence model for the tiers.

Both people and models fixate on the first handful of obvious options and stop early. The durable move in this family is forced variation: apply a structured constraint that pushes generation into regions free association skips, then select the few candidates worth keeping. The honest caveat runs through every member here: these methods broaden the option set, they do not validate it, so each one ends in a shortlist of candidates to test, never a recommendation.

Reach for this family when

• The obvious solutions all look alike and you need genuinely different options, not incremental ones.
• An option space feels stuck inside default constraints or a single framing.
• You have a seed idea, product, or process that needs to be pushed past the first variation.
• A normal brainstorm would converge too fast or anchor on whoever spoke first.

Which one to use

These five force variation in different ways, so the constraint you pick is the choice.

• Question Burst operates one level up, on the framing itself: it generates and ranks questions, not ideas, to find a better question before any answer. Reach for it first when you suspect you are solving the wrong problem.
• SCAMPER needs an existing seed to transform; it runs that seed through seven transformation prompts. With a blank page it has nothing to operate on, so use it late, to push a concrete idea past the obvious.
• Assumption Reversal targets the load-bearing premises an option space rests on, negates them, and generates from the reversed world. Use it when the obvious solutions all share a hidden assumption.
• Brainwriting is the breadth generator: several independent idea streams built on each other, designed to beat the anchoring and conformity of a single stream. Reach for it when you want wide coverage and want to avoid premature convergence. (S-tier: the silent-parallel mechanism is among the best-evidenced ideation findings.)
• Far-Analogy Ideation reaches to distant domains and transfers deep structure, not surface features, to produce the most original candidates. Use it when near solutions are exhausted; skip it when only a surface match is available, since a forced surface analogy is worse than none. (S-tier: distant analogies reliably yield more original solutions, when mapped on structure.)

A rough order: question-burst reframes, brainwriting and far-analogy open a blank space, SCAMPER and assumption reversal perturb something that already exists.

Composes with

This family generates; it does not decide. It is usually fed by Problem Framing, since a restated problem is a far better generation prompt than a raw one, and Question Burst here often hands off to it. Once a shortlist exists, it flows to Decision & Option Evaluation, where the candidates get scored and one is chosen, and a large idea pool can first pass through Synthesis to be clustered. Because everything here ends in candidates rather than answers, treat convergence and validation as a separate, downstream step.

Framework	Evidence	What it does
Assumption Reversal	P	Generates non-obvious ideas by surfacing the foundational assumptions a problem or solution rests on, negating each, and reframing from the reversed assumptions, then shortlisting, producing an assumptions-and-reversals sheet.
Brainwriting	S	Generates ideas the way silent parallel brainwriting does, producing several independent idea streams that build on each other without anchoring on the first voice, then consolidates them into a shortlisted idea pool.
Far-Analogy Ideation	S	Generates novel solution candidates by stating a problem’s deep relational structure, mapping it to distant source domains (nature, other industries, games), and transferring the mechanism rather than surface features, then adapting.
Question Burst	P	Generates a rapid burst of questions about a problem (questions only, no answers), then ranks them for which would most change the approach and selects the single most catalytic one to pursue, producing a ranked question set.
SCAMPER	P	Generates a structured set of variations on an existing idea, product, or process by running it through seven transformation prompts (substitute, combine, adapt, modify, put to other use, eliminate, reverse), then shortlists the most promising, producing an expansion sheet.

Not sure which of these fits your situation? The Framework Advisor will diagnose the job and recommend a minimal sequence.