Concept
Design Thinking in two funnels: ideate, then prioritise, then repeat
Good ideation and good prioritisation pull in opposite directions, and trying to do both at once tends to produce neither. We run them as two separate, deliberately shaped funnels instead.
How it’s structured
Two funnels, each with an opposite shape. Ideation opens up: analyse and prepare, then ideate and brainstorm as widely as possible, deliberately generating more ideas than the team will ever use. Prioritisation narrows back down: evaluate and prioritise what came out of ideation, then detail and document only the scenarios worth carrying forward into a roadmap. Running both as one blended conversation tends to quietly narrow ideation too early, since prioritising instincts kick in the moment a good idea appears.
Where we use it
We run this cycle, ideate, prioritise, repeat, in workshop settings with a client’s own team, often more than once across an engagement as new information changes what’s actually valuable. It’s a simple structure, which is exactly the point: it’s easy to facilitate in the room, and it keeps a workshop’s energy matched to what that phase actually needs, wide and generative, or narrow and decisive, instead of blurring the two together.