Concept Fan

What this technique does

Take the current solution and climb one rung up the ladder of abstraction by asking "what is this a way of doing?" The answer is the direction — the broader purpose the solution was only ever one route toward. From that vantage, fan out alternative concepts that serve the same direction, then drop each promising concept back down into concrete implementations. The move that unlocks everything is the climb: once you name the direction, the current solution stops looking inevitable and becomes just one branch among several.

Source: Edward de Bono, Serious Creativity (1992).

Workflow

Step 1: Confirm the target

A valid target is a current solution or approach — something already on the table, not a blank page. "We send onboarding emails, is that the right move?" is a target. "Give me onboarding ideas" is not; there is nothing to climb from. If the target is a blank page, ask one focused question: "What's the current approach you'd be climbing up from?"

Refuse requests to perform analytical work — debugging, reviewing code, implementing a change — and suggest an analytical approach instead. Redesigning or ideating about such a process is a valid creative target: "reinvent our code-review ritual" is in scope; "review this PR" is not.

Step 2: Climb

Ask "what is this a way of doing?" The answer names the direction the current solution was serving. Then ask the same question of that answer, to climb one more rung.