The benefits of Divergent and Convergent Thinking

Divergent thinking embraces an approach that promotes collaboration to generate ideas and numerous solutions with no censoring of ideas.  Once an allocated timebox to share and discuss ideas and options is concluded, divergent thinking is paired with convergent thinking which are approaches to more quickly come to consensus. This is illustrated below.

A traditional divergent technique is brainstorming which focuses you on generating ideas in an unstructured manner.  But due to the fast pace of most companies, we are quick to shutdown brainstorming by criticizing the options of others (including our own). Because of this, I recommend 15 minutes of silence for all brainstorming activities to ensure all ideas get a chance to be revealed prior to any discussion,

People generate their ideas with no discussion so no one’s ideas are dismissed by those more assertive or intimidating. As you may guess, often the quiet team members (aka, introverts) have some of the best ideas and a divergent “quiet” period allows the talented introverts to get their ideas on the table.  The key to divergent thinking is that there is absolutely no censorship of the ideas or solutions coming forth.  All ideas are valuable. 

Once the divergent time-box is concluded, it is time to commence with convergent thinking.  Convergent thinking is an approach to systematically limiting your options and focus on one direction. From divergent thinking, there are often more ideas and possible solutions than can be handled. 

In convergence, various techniques can be applied to bring together ideas.  This may include looking for affinities where common themes may arise from some of the ideas.  It can also include red-dot voting, a non-confrontational prioritization technique where people quietly place their dots on what they think are the top ideas for solving the problem.  Ideas with the top number of dots are discussed until a top option is selected.    

The value of divergent thinking cannot be underscored.  Spending as little as a few hours of collaborative brainstorming coming up with ideas is a drop in the bucket of the thousands of hours spend in building a solution.  The tiny investment is worth ensuring that many options are made available. 

Also, the divergent and convergent pairing can occur in a continuous manner.  For every customer need expressed in a user story, in the beginning of an iteration or sprint, divergent thinking can be used in sprint planning to consider options prior to jumping into the sprint where you build the customer need. When the next iterative or sprint begins, we move back to divergent thinking to consider options for the next step of user stories prior to embarking on the sprint.    

It is also very important to be explicit about whether you are in a divergent or convergent thinking mode. Some people naturally gravitate toward divergence while others gravitate toward convergence.  It can reduce issues in interpersonal relationships to explicitly state whether you are in a divergent or convergent mode so that it is clear whether you are soliciting options or closing down options.  

Finally, when you have an organization that is constantly pushing you to move forward, convergence is stressed whether consciously or unconsciously and this is a detriment to innovation and being open to numerous possible solutions.  It may take an organization to explicitly initiated divergent thinking to achieve more innovation and ideas.