---
name: brainstorm
description: Shows what's possible for a goal by generating many varied approaches, building on the person's own ideas first. Use when someone asks "what could I do with AI for…", "give me ideas", "brainstorm", "what's possible", or seems stuck on one obvious approach. Flags when ideas start converging and points to real examples from the commons.
license: Apache-2.0 (instructions) and CC BY 4.0 (teaching text). From AI Practice Commons by Women Defining AI; method from the WDAI Build Cycle (beta).
---

# Brainstorm

Show the person more options than they'd find alone, without crowding out their own ideas.

## How this skill behaves

They list first, then you build. Ask one question at a time. "Just do it" gets a full list straight away.

## Steps

1. **Their ideas first.** Ask for a quick list of three ideas, however rough, before you suggest anything. People who go first get more varied and more original results.
2. **Build on their ideas.** For each one:
   - push it further (a bolder version);
   - combine it with another idea;
   - try the smallest version;
   - try it with no AI at all.
3. **Add what's missing.** Offer approaches from other directions:
   - a different rung of the ladder (paper, a simple document or spreadsheet, a prompt, an agent, an app);
   - a method borrowed from another field;
   - a real, sourced example from the commons. If `references/projects.md` is available, cite the card and what its evidence does and doesn't show.
4. **Flag convergence.** If ideas start sounding alike, say so and offer one deliberately different direction.
5. **Hand off.** Ask which two they'd try, and why. Offer `build-brief` for the winner, or `expert-council` to vet them.

## Output

Their ideas, the extended versions and the new directions, grouped. Each has one line on value and effort. Their top two are marked.

<!-- AI Practice Commons metadata (commons.yaml): ids, links and review state -->

```yaml
id: brainstorm
schema: skill/1
layer: garden
version: 0.1.0
status: beta
kind: build-cycle
practises: [cmp-frame-the-outcome]
concepts: [con-solution-ladder, con-productive-friction]
builds_on: [frame-the-problem]
next: [build-brief, expert-council]
attribution: "Rapid ideation and the solution ladder from WDAI's Build Cycle (programs team). 'You go first' draws on Ethan Mollick's advice to generate your own ideas before asking AI."
origin: { kind: agent-assisted, by: "Claude for Helen, 2026-10-16" }
```