The Worst Possible Idea

Sometimes, the best way to be creative and bring in the best ideas is to do the exact opposite. What I am talking about is a method called The Worst Possible Idea. The general idea is that we come up with as many really bad ideas as possible. Then we analyze them and see what is so bad about them; once we have the bad attributes, we search for the opposite of these bad attributes and incorporate them into our process. This method is a fun and creative one that can also be a good ice breaker in a team as it encourages bad ideas and in that way, people feel more comfortable in expressing their ideas and taking part in the creative work.

So let me give you a list of what to do:

Preparation

• Decide Time: Decide over an initial period of time that you will spend ideating. Depending on the size of the group and what you are doing, this can vary.
• Clarify the Question: Make sure that everyone knows what the question that you have worked out in your research is.

Distributing Materials

• Provide Post-Its: Give everyone a bunch of post-its and tell them that they are supposed to come up with the worst solutions possible to the question.

Ideation Process

• Start the Timer: Start the timer for the ideation session.
• Generate Ideas: Participants write down the worst possible solutions they can think of on the post-its within the given time.

Gathering and Evaluating Ideas

• Collect Ideas: Once the timer is out, gather all the ideas.
• Select Worst Idea: Select the top absolute worst idea in your team. You can, for example, vote on which ones are the worst ever.

Analyzing Bad Ideas

• Discuss Attributes: Discuss what makes these ideas so bad and write down the attributes that you find.

Flipping Attributes

• Find Opposites: Flip these attributes; i.e. find their opposite. For example, “slow” becomes “fast”, and “bitter” becomes “tasty”.

Discussing New Ideas

• Evaluate Opposites: Discuss these new ideas; what makes them good and what makes them bad.
• Mix and Match: Mix and match ideas and see where you end up.

The point of this method is to explore design areas that we otherwise wouldn’t if we were solely focused on good ideas. Through discussion and analysis we gain a better understanding of the problem space.

Suppose we are designing for a first person shooter game and our question is “how might we add variation to the weapons in our game?” - one of the worst ideas may be “to give the player a gun that only damages the players themselves and heals the enemies”. Through discussing it, you may find that this idea is “counter productive”, and eventually perhaps come up with a weapon that is ultra powerful against enemies but also does some damage to the player. Or perhaps a weapon that if used on a specific type of enemy, it will heal them instead of hurting them. The world is your oyster. The important thing in this phase is to explore ideas, and this method allows us to hack our brains and question the presumptions that we have about a certain problem and what is right and wrong to create more fun and engaging games.