# Ideate: Divergent Thinking

**Track:** Design Thinking & Process — Design & Human-Centered Design — proposed (25)
**Framework / surface:** design
**Level:** Intermediate
**Prerequisites:** Define: Problem Framing & “How Might We”

**In one line:** Generate many options before judging — quantity, deferral, and structured methods.

## Theory, aesthetics & inspiration

Creativity has two motions, and the first is expansion. J.P. Guilford's 1950 presidential address to the American Psychological Association launched the modern study of creativity; he later named divergent thinking — the fluent generation of many possibilities — as distinct from convergent thinking, the search for one right answer. Alex Osborn, the advertising executive behind BBDO, turned this into method: his 1953 "Applied Imagination" codified brainstorming and its cardinal rule — defer judgment, because evaluating and generating at once strangles both. Structured prompts push divergence further: SCAMPER interrogates an idea from seven angles, while Crazy Eights demands eight sketches in eight minutes. Both remain staples of today's ideation workshops. The discipline is sequence — make many, then choose.

## References

- [Divergent thinking — Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divergent_thinking)
- [Brainstorming — Wikipedia (Osborn, BBDO, Applied Imagination, defer judgment)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brainstorming)
- [SCAMPER — Interaction Design Foundation](https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/topics/scamper)