Why brainstorming does not work
On the page of Super Oracle there is a block "This does not work" — and the first tool in it is brainstorming with the team: everyone talks, nobody listens, the loudest wins, and the result is 30 ideas with no clue which one to do first. Copying the competitors also does not expand the space — it narrows it down to someone else's solutions. The problem is not a lack of ideas but the absence of a system that turns a task into a plan.
Stages 1-2: narrow down to expand
The paradox of the method: the solution space is expanded after an exact narrowing of the task. First the Formulation — the system, the useful function, the undesirable effect. Then the Contradiction — the conflict of properties separated from the symptoms and the constraints. A team that skips these stages gets many ideas about the wrong task.
Stage 3: fundamentally different moves
The directions must be different by nature, not variations of one idea: "make it faster" and "hire more people" are the same idea of scaling. A good set of directions uses different inventive principles and different parts of the system. One of the tricks of expansion is the Blue Ocean ERRC grid from the arsenal of Oracle: what to eliminate, what to reduce, what to raise, what to create. The questions "what can we stop doing altogether?" and "what is nobody creating in the industry?" lead away from catch-up improvements to a new value curve.
Stage 4: the test before the evaluation
For every move, the expected effect, the risk and a cheap test are set — before the team starts evaluating "like / dislike". This protects unusual directions from being rejected at the discussion stage: a direction lives until it fails its own cheap test. About how this stage works — in the article "From contradiction to test".
The artifact of the stage
The result of the work is the map of the contradiction, the set of the directions of the solution, the assumptions, the risks and the test scenarios. This artifact is fixed in the passport of the agent. It is convenient because every direction can be discussed separately from the others — without the "whose idea is better" argument that kills ordinary meetings.
Questions and answers
How are directions different from brainstorming ideas?
Every direction is tied to the contradiction and comes with an expected effect, a risk and a cheap test; brainstorming ideas have no such tie.
What is the ERRC grid?
The four questions of Blue Ocean: what to eliminate, what to reduce, what to raise, what to create. The result is a new value curve instead of fighting by the rules of the competitors.
Does Oracle replace the team in generation?
No: the passport of the agent directly requires the engineering, product and economic evaluation of the proposals by specialized experts.
Why not copy the competitors right away?
Copying narrows the solution space down to someone else's compromises; the method first expands the options.
What is ERRC?
The four questions of Blue Ocean: eliminate, reduce, raise, create — applied at the stage of directions.
Which tools count as "the wrong ones"?
Brainstorming without the structure of the conflict and direct copying of the competitors: they do not work with the contradiction.
How is the task formulated for the expansion?
The system, the useful function and the undesirable effect are specified until the conflict is separated from the symptoms.
How many directions are generated?
Several fundamentally different moves, so that the choice is between approaches, not shades of one.
Who selects the directions?
The team with specialized expertise: Oracle expands the space, the evaluation is up to the specialists.
How does the test stage complete the expansion?
For every move, the expected effect, the risk and a cheap test are set.