From Idea to Reality – The Power of Divergent and Convergent Thinking

Divergent and convergent thinking, at its most basic level, is about generating ideas and then deciding how to act on those ideas. Language around divergent and convergent thinking is probably not in your daily lexicon, but all of us go through cycles of divergent and convergent thinking every day, whether we know it or not.

These cycles could involve choices about your business or a product you’re designing, or they could relate to decisions involving your family and relationships, health and wellness, hobbies, possessions, schedules, meals, entertainment, home projects, chores, trips, outfits, Christmas presents, social media posts, and more

What is Divergent and Convergent Thinking?

Divergent and convergent thinking can be visualized like the shape of a diamond. Divergent thinking occurs at the start, where you generate a wide range of ideas and possibilities, expanding outward like the opening of a diamond. This phase encourages creativity, learning, and exploration without judgment.

Once you’ve gathered many ideas, the process shifts to convergent thinking, where you narrow down and evaluate those ideas to identify the best ones. This is like the diamond coming to a point, where the focus is on refining and selecting the strongest solutions.

Have you ever had the “What would you do if you won the lottery?” conversation with a group of people and someone said, “Well I would probably just keep working my job because I think I’d be bored otherwise”? That answer, while fairly typical, doesn’t have much creativity or inspiration in it. That person probably has some room to develop their ideation and creative muscles by learning to use divergent thinking.

On the flip side, have you ever been in the endless loop of deciding where you want to eat with a loved one and instead of helping decide, they keep suggesting new places? Situations where you have difficult or endless choices like that can be made easier with convergent thinking tools, which will help you narrow down your ideas and make a final choice.

In this blog, we’ll share some of the common pitfalls you might encounter during these ideation cycles, look at a real-world example of working through these processes, and lay out a couple of tools you might use to supercharge your divergent and convergent thinking abilities.

Divergent Thinking Pitfalls

Pitfall #1: “This idea isn’t worth sharing because it’s half-baked.”

An underlying theme of being good at divergent thinking, particularly in groups, is being willing to be vulnerable around others. You must be okay with sharing “bad” ideas, and the group you’re working with also needs to be willing to let bad ideas enter the discussion. Even if your idea is half-baked, the group you’re sharing with might just have the other half of your idea.

Pitfall #2 “I already have the best idea.”

When ideating, you may think you’ve already had the best idea and that there’s no reason to try improving on it, but this is a naive viewpoint. The risk here is that if your assumption is wrong, and your idea doesn’t work out for any reason, you have forfeited the opportunity to find better options.

Knowing when to commit to an idea is a challenging topic for a couple of reasons. First, for many organizations, time is money, and it can be difficult to allow for investment in divergent ideation activities as it takes time to do well. My encouragement would be to really consider what an investment in divergent thinking looks like, as the process you choose to utilize can have a much larger impact down the road. 

Second, the decision-making game is an emotional one, and we are so good at convincing ourselves that we are right. The mental reframe here is to go from “I am right” to “I am an explorer on a mission to find the truth as efficiently as I can”.

Convergent Thinking Pitfalls

Pitfall #1: “I almost have everything worked out, but I want to test a few more things.”

A common persona in the ideation space is the “eternal conceptor”. While having a hunger to iterate over and over is important, there is a point when that mentality can become a crutch more than an asset.

Trying again and again on a test or a prototype can be a safety net for someone who is afraid to take the next step and truly go do the thing. There’s no magic number of iterations that will make an idea, business, or product successful.

At DISHER, we know that iterations need to be targeted and directed to a defined endpoint. Whether it’s a specified date, a certain level of performance, or healthy feedback from users, you need to have some definition of “done” on your work.

There’s a reason the 2025 Ford doesn’t look much like a model T, and the iPhone is quite removed from a rotary dial. Continuing to concept is great, but at some point, you have to launch your new idea.

Pitfall #2: “The idea works perfectly… for me.”

When ideating, relying on your personal experiences can be useful, but it’s important to remember that your work is almost always for a user who isn’t you. When ideating on a product or idea, you need to have a good understanding of who your user is and then use a diligent approach to make sure you don’t waver in creating for that user group.

As an example, cars are designed to easily fit people who are 4 feet 11 inches tall up to 6 feet 2 inches tall. The ideology is that you capture ~95% of the population by targeting these heights. In the product design space, there are a lot of biases that can work their way into a product: age, gender, size, handedness, geography, ableness, etc. It’s important to do proper user research, have target users test iterations along the way, and create diverse design teams whenever you’re able.

A Divergent and Convergent Case Study: Burton Snowboards

Speaking of diamonds, an interesting example of some divergent and convergent principles can be found in Jake Burton Carpenter’s early journey in launching Burton, a brand that has become a giant in the winter recreation space. As a child, Jake was an avid winter sportsman, and a big fan of the Snurfer, a precursor to the modern snowboard.

In 1977, after a few years of working in investment banking in Manhattan, Jake grew tired of long corporate workdays and left his job to pursue a better version of the in-line sledding board he’d come to love. As an indicator of his dedication to divergent thinking, Jake built over 100 prototypes exploring different materials, manufacturing methods, shapes, features, etc., and tested them on hills and mountains in Vermont. Jake could have been at risk of becoming the “eternal conceptor” but he was able to move to convergent space because had a specific performance goal in mind that he eventually reached.

From there, Jake experienced the biases of the target customer base, which tested the limits of his diligence. The main hurdle was a lack of adoption in the industry. Nearly all the prestigious ski clubs did not allow these new pieces of equipment to be used on their slopes. Without that exposure, Jake struggled early on to create any traction with his product.

In 1983, he was able to run a product test in front of some key decision-makers at Stratton Mountain Resort. They decided to allow the new boards to be used on their slopes and once the public saw the early use of Burton boards, the market uptake gained momentum quickly.

Jake was able to align the bias of the market with the target of his business, resulting in his early success. By being willing to share his ideas early on and having a deep hunger to explore potential options, Jake gave Burton the best chance it had to build great snowboards. By knowing when good was good enough and working through the alignment of biases between him and the market, he created a path for the company to take off.

For Your Toolbox

Divergent Thinking Tool: Collaborative Brainstorming

So how do you climb the mountain of divergent thinking? First, it’s important to start by identifying when you’re in a divergent space, as this will help you avoid making premature decisions.

Second, we find that it’s helpful to brainstorm with others early on in the ideation process.

Lastly, you need to get input from external sources. This gives your brain more information to digest when you move into the convergent portion of the process.

At DISHER, we offer our clients one hour of free ideation and brainstorming around a current problem or challenge they might have. We do this because we recognize the importance of helping our clients get into a space that allows them to do divergent and convergent thinking. It’s incredible to see the new and novel ideas emerge after getting in a room with subject matter experts, stakeholders, and potential product users.

Convergent Thinking Tool: Decision Matrices

When you do make the intentional switch from creating choices (convergent thinking) to making choices (divergent thinking), it can be difficult to be data-driven in your approach. For many of us, it’s easy to make a call based on “gut feel” or, on the other hand, to get bogged down with indecisiveness and not have a clear way out.

We encourage our teams to make data-driven decisions. A decision matrix can be a method of pushing yourself to quantify all the elements of these choices, ultimately minimizing the impact of your emotions and maximizing the hard work that has gone into exploring all the options. Ideally, you come out of that process with a top idea to pursue as well as alternatives identified if you find your top idea isn’t viable down the road.

Conclusion

Ultimately, I encourage anyone reading to continue becoming more aware of when you’re creating choices and when you’re making them. Be mindful of the roadblocks you might encounter along the way. Draw inspiration from stories like Jake Burton’s, who diligently worked towards a vision he was passionate about. Finally, if you find yourself in the midst of the sometimes-grueling process of ideation, we’d love to hear the story of your journey and offer our support however we can.