Thinking tool: Framestorming

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Adam Jones

Most brainstorming focuses on coming up with solutions to a challenge. You might brainstorm new strategies, new products, or new approaches.

But people rarely apply the same divergent thinking to understanding the problem area.

As put by Tina Seelig, Professor of the Practice in Stanford University’s Department of Management Science and Engineering, on episode 210 of the "How to be awesome at your job" podcast:

A company can get started, and say, “We’re going to cure cancer.” Well, that sounds like a really great idea.

But what if they asked a different question, “How do we prevent cancer?” [...] Or, “How do we detect cancer earlier?” or, “How do we allow people who have cancer to live better lives?” or, “How do we reduce the symptoms?” or, “How do we help people of different age groups?”

Each of these questions is critical to unlocking a different set of solutions. And so that’s where you come up with really innovative ideas.

Two panels. Brainstorming solutions: the single question 'how do we cure cancer?' branches straight into a new drug, a better therapy, gene editing. Framestorming: 'cancer is the problem area' branches first into four different questions - cure it, prevent it, detect it, live with it - and each of those then branches into its own set of solutions

Brainstorming different framings of a problem, or perhaps problems within a problem area:

  • can help avoid you being too zoomed in on a sub-problem (often without you consciously realising you're too zoomed in!)
  • helps you generate more solutions as you explore different parts of the problem area
  • acts as a forcing function to make sure you've truly understood your problem and the people it affects, making it more likely the solutions actually target the issue you care about

This is part of my thinking tools series. Also consider:

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