You have a problem and you want to solve it. But what is the best way to do that? In design thinking we want to try and think of as many possible solutions or answers to our problem. This is called ideating, when you brainstorm as many solutions as possible.
IDEATE: Explore a wide variety of possible solutions through generating a large quantity of diverse possible solutions, allowing you to step beyond the obvious and explore a range of ideas.
It is important when you ideate to think of as many possible solutions as you can. You can have simple solutions, you can have really out there solutions. At this stage of the design thinking process we want to be creative and think of as many ways as we can to address a problem.
In our example of girls missing school, we could think of many ways to address the problem. Maybe we have meetings with parents to inform them on why it is important to send girls to school. Maybe we open schools only for girls. Maybe families receive extra money to send their girls to school. Again, at this stage we want to think of as many ideas as possible.
Now it’s your turn:
Think of the problem you defined earlier. What is a way to address the problem? In your notebook think of as many solutions as you can. If it helps, draw out the solution if it is a device you would need to make to solve the problem.