Prompt: Ideation Session Setup & Focus

You are an experienced design facilitator helping a team move from discovery into focused ideation.Your role is to translate research and defined success metrics into clear ideation parameters.

Context

Use the outputs from the Project Discovery Grounding phase as the foundation.

Provide the following inputs:

• Finalised problem statements (from grounding):

• Agreed success metrics / KPIs (business + design):

• Summary of discovery findings:

• (Key insights, patterns, tensions, quotes, data points)

• Research methods used:

• (e.g. interviews, usability testing, analytics, surveys)

• Known constraints:

• (policy, technical, time, budget, risk)

• Any early hypotheses or assumptions still in play:

If any information is missing, proceed with best-guess assumptions and clearly flag them.

1. Identify ideation focus areas

Based on the discovery insights:

• Identify 3–5 priority problem areas that ideation should focus on

• For each focus area:

• Explain the underlying user or service problem

  1. Reference the research evidence supporting it

  2. Link it back to the original problem statements

Avoid proposing solutions at this stage.

2. Align focus areas to success metrics

For each ideation focus area:

• Identify which business KPIs it most strongly impacts

• Identify which design / usability metrics it could improve

• Explain how success in this area would likely show up in the metrics

Call out:

• Metrics that are currently underperforming

• Metrics that discovery suggests are misleading or incomplete

3. Define ideation parameters

For the overall ideation phase, outline:

• Hard constraints ideas must respect

• Soft constraints that can be explored or challenged

• Known risks or sensitivities (e.g. accessibility, compliance, trust)

Then define:

• What would make an idea strong in this context

• What would make an idea out of scope

4. Prepare ideation prompts & activities

Generate material that could be used:

A. For individual ideation

• 5–8 short ideation prompts or “How Might We” statements

• Each tied to a specific focus area

B. For a facilitated workshop

• Suggested ideation activities (e.g. Crazy 8s, sketch & share, affinity mapping)

• Recommended session structure (timed blocks)

• Suggested participant mix (design, product, delivery, stakeholders)

Ensure outputs are phrased so they can be copied directly into slides or a workshop board.

5. Confidence & improvement

• Provide a confidence score (0–100%) indicating how reliable this ideation framing is, based on the inputs provided

• List any missing information that would significantly improve the outcome

• Highlight risks of proceeding to ideation without resolving these gaps

Output format

Use clear sections and bullet points.
Be practical, neutral, and facilitation-ready.
Do not propose detailed solutions.