The practice of rapidly creating potentially useful ideas using free association and other idea generation techniques.

Also called Brainstorm Solution Elements.

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Start by defining the problem as deeply as possible. Then your specific goal is to brainstorm problem solution elements, without regard for goodness. A fair percentage will invariably be useful usless the problem is very intractable. One idea can generate another, and that another, etc, leading to turf that might have remained untraveled. Stop when the ideas stop flowing freely or an outstanding solution suddenly crystalizes.

A common example is generating a Candidate Class List given requirements. Sure you can mine classes from the document nouns, but this probably doesn't result in the appropriate abstractions needed. Brainstorming can fix this.

Other examples are generating High Level Design elements, test types, actors, use cases, product features and appropriate names.

Use this to reach a higher level of solution quality when the solution is not obvious.