cross-pollination-engine
Cross-Pollination Engine
The Core Insight
Most "innovation" is applying proven solutions from one domain to another.
- Resistance wheels → Rollerblades
- Gaming XP systems → Duolingo
- Hotel concierge → Software onboarding
The Process
- Define the core job (strip away industry context)
- Find who else solves it (often surprising industries)
- Extract principles (not surface features)
- Translate to your context (adapt, don't copy)
Industry Inspiration Library
| Need | Look At | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Trust | Banking, Healthcare, Aviation | Verification, credentials, checklists |
| Engagement | Gaming, Fitness apps, Streaming | XP, streaks, personalization, progress |
| Onboarding | Hotels, Theme parks, Luxury retail | Concierge, anticipation, personal touch |
| Simplicity | Apple, IKEA, Google | Feature cutting, hidden complexity |
| Urgency | E-commerce, Airlines, Fast food | Scarcity, anchoring, speed promises |
| Community | CrossFit, Harley-Davidson, Peloton | Tribal identity, shared experience |
Output Format
PROBLEM: [What you're solving]
CORE JOB: [Stripped to fundamentals]
FROM [Industry 1]:
How they solve it: [x]
Key principle: [y]
Applied to us: [z]
FROM [Industry 2]:
How they solve it: [x]
Key principle: [y]
Applied to us: [z]
SYNTHESIS: [Combined approach]
NEXT STEP: [Concrete action]
Prompt Starters
- "How would Disney solve our onboarding?"
- "What would Amazon do with our data?"
- "If this were a game, how would it work?"
- "How do luxury hotels make people feel special?"
Integration
Compounds with:
- jtbd-analyzer → Understand job first, then find who else solves it
- first-principles-decomposer → Strip context to find fundamental need
- six-thinking-hats → Green Hat pairs naturally with cross-pollination
- app-planning-skill → Apply borrowed patterns to new apps
See references/examples.md for Artem-specific cross-pollinations
More from fimoklei/pm-ai-playbook
first-principles-decomposer
Break any problem down to fundamental truths, then rebuild solutions from atoms up. Use when user says "firstp", "first principles", "from scratch", "what are we assuming", "break this down", "atomic", "fundamental truth", "physics thinking", "Elon method", "bedrock", "ground up", "core problem", "strip away", or challenges assumptions about how things are done.
22optimize-docs
Condense markdown documentation for token efficiency while preserving all semantic meaning. Use when rules, documentation, or config files need optimization. Target 25-40% reduction through systematic condensation patterns.
20pre-mortem-analyst
Imagine the project already failed, then work backward to find why. More powerful than risk assessment because it assumes failure is certain. Use when user says "pre-mortem", "premortem", "imagine this failed", "what could go wrong", "risk analysis", "before we launch", "stress test", "what would kill this", "project risks".
20idea-challenger
Pre-launch red team analysis that identifies failure modes and validates assumptions before resource commitment. Use when evaluating new products/features/strategies, before significant resource allocation, when stakeholders seem overly optimistic, or when cost of failure would be high (reputation, budget, market position).
20inversion-strategist
Flip problems upside down - instead of "how to succeed", ask "how to definitely fail" then avoid those paths. Use when user says "invert", "inversion", "flip it", "opposite approach", "how would this fail", "avoid failure", "what NOT to do", "Munger", "anti-goals", "guarantee failure".
20security-threat-model
Repository-grounded threat modeling that enumerates trust boundaries, assets, attacker capabilities, abuse paths, and mitigations, and writes a concise Markdown threat model. Trigger only when the user explicitly asks to threat model a codebase or path, enumerate threats/abuse paths, or perform AppSec threat modeling.
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