Diverge

As you can tell by its form, diverging means to create more ‘width’, variety or quantity. It’s rather about quality than quantity, rather about using synthetic than analytical skills. In designer’s language: exploring the solution space. Many methods can help you do this. Most know are the different brainstorm methods, creating a mind map of questions can also divergently help you explore the problem.

What if I don’t diverge?

If you just take the first solution that comes up, or only just had a discussion in the team without actively diverging you are bound to come up with nothing new. Diverging is not easy for most people. People are trained analytically and cannot let go of that mindset very easily. That’s why organising this design activity is elementary. Brainstorming has become a different word for ‘just talking’ in a team, that is not a divergent method. The paradox is that, the less people are inclined to diverge, the more they will need divergent methods to successfully create new ideas.

Where in the design flow?

After diverging often clustering and/or converging follow.
It depends on the project whether a lot of diverging makes sense. If you already know you will end up making a car, don’t be creative in a wider sense than is realistic. Use the creative energy for inventing new ways to make use or shape the car. This is more attractive to the team, otherwise it’s just an exercise, no one believes in.

Which method to use?

What purpose do you have? How much time do you wish to spend on diverging? How conceptually wide do you want to go?