Structured Brainstorming

The Separation Principle — Foundational Rule

Generation and evaluation CANNOT happen simultaneously. Osborn (1953): "You cannot get hot and cold water from the same faucet at the same time — you only get tepid water."

Consequence for the agent: All options must be generated before any option is scored. Never filter or rank during generation. Self-censorship during generation degrades both the quality of ideas and the quality of evaluation.

Phase 1: HMW Framing — Set Up the Ideation Space

Before generating any options, reframe the problem as a "How Might We" question.

Rules for valid HMW questions:

• No embedded solutions: "How might we make onboarding faster?" ✓ vs "How might we add tooltips?" ✗
• Outcome-oriented, not feature-oriented
• Broad enough for genuinely different approaches
• Positive framing (not "How might we avoid X?")