Better than Brainstorming - Part 1: 4 Ways to Ideate

You don't need to be the next Einstein or some sort of prophet to get a new idea. Despite Hollywood depictions, ideas don't just happen out of the blue. Even the famous eureka moment that started it all didn't really come out of nowhere.

The ancient Greek king, Hiero II, commissioned a new crown for himself, but when it was completed, he suspected that the goldsmith had cheated him by replacing some of the gold with silver. Unfortunately, he had no way to prove this, so he asked Archimedes for help. Archimedes mulled over this problem for quite a while until one evening, he settled into his tub for a soak. That's when he noticed the water level rise. He realized he could measure the volume of the crown by placing it in water. Once he knew the volume, he used the weight of the crown to determine if it was as dense as pure gold. (It wasn't.)

Archimedes didn't come up with this innovation out of thin air. He did it by connecting two things that had never been connected before. And this is where all new ideas come from: combining concepts from things that already exist.

Rather than rely on conventional brainstorming, the next time you or your team need to come up with a bold new idea, try one of these methods designed specifically to help your brain make new connections.

Ideation Techniques That Actually Work

Analogous Rex

This technique uses analogies and metaphors. You say your innovation problem is like a [blank]. That blank could be anything, but it generally falls into two categories: random and context.

Random analogies are exactly what they sound like—something totally unrelated to your innovation problem. Your problem could be like auto racing, ping pong, or a volcano. Just pick something at random, like sunflowers, and apply it to the challenges you're facing, like assigning nurses to patients in a hospital.

At first, you might think sunflowers have absolutely nothing to do with nursing assignments. But if you think about it for a while, interesting ideas emerge. Sunflowers are always facing the sun—they watch it, they pay attention to it. Maybe there's a way to make it easier for all the nurses to watch the patients that need the most attention.

Context analogies fill in the blank with something related to your problem. Maybe it's similar to another problem you've solved before, or maybe it's sort of like what a competitor has done.

Whether your analogy is random or based on context, the key is what comes next. Once you have your analogy, you need to defend it. If you have a partner, ask them to play devil's advocate to question your analogy and force you to justify how it makes sense. This defense process is where the real insights emerge.

Mix Master

This is a fun one. New ideas come from combining two separate, and often highly dissimilar, concepts. In Mix Master, you do exactly this to generate new ideas—take two unrelated ideas, mash them up, and see how the new combination could help with your problem.

Using our earlier example, you would combine sunflowers and auto racing, then see what ideas that sparks for nursing assignments. The unexpected collision of concepts forces your brain into new territory.

Where do you get random concepts like sunflowers and auto racing? Several options work well:

• Dedicated apps—search for "Idea Generator" in your favorite app store and see how many come up
• Random Wikipedia pages—a great way to surface disparate topics
• Board games with topic cards like Trivial Pursuit or Taboo provide fast, fun topic generation
• Team brainstorming—ask your team to throw out random topics before you begin ideating

That last option can be a fun warm-up exercise. What's more, your brain might pull a fast one and throw out a concept where it sees a hidden connection to the problem you're trying to overcome.

Chart the Course

For all you chart and diagram enthusiasts, this one's for you. Chart the Course is a technique for turning your verbal understanding of your struggle into visual representations.

This can take the form of pie charts comparing the size of different aspects of the problem, or line charts that plot the amount of pain experienced over time. There's no single diagram that gives you the perfect idea every time.

But converting your verbal understanding into a visual one is a powerful way to engage the automatic system in your brain. You may already be experiencing hunches about how you can best innovate. These charts illuminate those hunches and turn that inkling of a feeling into a fully-fledged idea.

Headhunter

In this exercise, you pretend you're a headhunter—the best in the business. Big companies come to you all the time asking for help finding their next top executive. You're the star in your field because you always find exactly the right person for what the company needed.

But with this exercise, your client isn't a big company; it's the people you're trying to help with your new innovation. You need to come up with a job description for your innovation. What needs to be done? These are the roles and responsibilities for the job you're hiring for.

Once you have the job description, it becomes much easier to come up with an innovation that fits the bill.

For example: Wanted: an innovation to help people hang pictures on tall walls in their homes. Must be able to work over staircases and be easily storable.

With this job description in hand, potential candidates to fill the role become clearer:

• A hammer with an extendable handle
• A precision nail gun
• A ladder with adjustable legs
• A picture frame with an adhesive back
• A service where professionals hang the picture

By focusing on the job description, you open your mind to a plethora of diverse possibilities rather than fixating on the first solution that comes to mind.

Turning Ideas Into Reality

These ideation techniques help you generate innovative concepts, but the real challenge often comes next: bringing those ideas to life. Whether you've used Analogous Rex to discover a new approach or Headhunter to define exactly what your solution needs to do, you eventually need to build something.

Ada, Adalo's AI builder, lets you describe what you want and generates your app. Magic Start creates complete app foundations from a description, while Magic Add adds features through natural language.

This is where modern tools can accelerate your innovation cycle. Adalo is a no-code app builder for database-driven web apps and native iOS and Android apps—one version across all three platforms, published to the Apple App Store and Google Play. Its AI-powered capabilities let you describe what you want to create and generate the foundation automatically. Magic Start creates complete app structures from simple descriptions—tell it you need a brainstorming app for your team, and it builds your database, screens, and user flows in minutes rather than days.

The platform has been described as "easy as PowerPoint" for visual building, with over 3 million apps created on the platform. For teams running ideation sessions, you could build a custom Mix Master app that generates random topic combinations, or a Chart the Course tool that helps visualize problems in real-time.

One build publishes to web, iOS App Store, and Android Play Store—removing the technical barriers that often slow down innovation from concept to launch.

What Comes Next

These are just a few tactics to help generate new ideas in your pursuit to be more innovative. The key insight from Archimedes remains true today: innovation comes from connecting things that haven't been connected before.

Whether you're using random analogies, mashing up unrelated concepts, visualizing your problems, or writing job descriptions for your solutions, you're training your brain to make those unexpected connections.

Check our next post where we cover four more ways to ideate that are better than brainstorming (including my favorite and an homage to Whose Line Is It Anyway?, Questions Only).

FAQ

Why choose Adalo over other app building solutions?

Adalo is an AI-powered app builder that creates true native iOS and Android apps from a single codebase. Unlike web wrappers, it compiles to native code and publishes directly to both the Apple App Store and Google Play Store. The platform handles the complex submission process automatically—often the hardest part of launching an app.

What's the fastest way to build and publish an app to the App Store?

Adalo's drag-and-drop interface, combined with AI-assisted building features like Magic Start, lets you go from idea to published app in days rather than months. Magic Start generates complete app foundations from descriptions, while the platform handles App Store certificates, provisioning profiles, and submission guidelines automatically.

Can I build an ideation and brainstorming app without coding?

Yes. With Adalo's visual builder—described as "easy as PowerPoint"—you can create apps that incorporate ideation techniques like random topic generators, visual charting tools, and collaborative brainstorming spaces. Over 3 million apps have been built on the platform without writing code.

What is the key principle behind generating new ideas?

All new ideas come from combining concepts from things that already exist. Like Archimedes connecting water displacement to measuring volume, innovation happens when you make connections between unrelated concepts rather than waiting for ideas to appear out of thin air.

How does the Mix Master ideation technique work?

Mix Master involves taking two unrelated ideas, mashing them together, and seeing how the new combination could help solve your problem. You can generate random concepts using idea generator apps, random Wikipedia pages, board games with topic cards, or by having your team brainstorm random topics before beginning the exercise.

What is the Headhunter technique and how can it help with innovation?

The Headhunter technique involves creating a job description for your innovation—defining what needs to be done, the roles, and responsibilities. By focusing on this job description rather than jumping straight to solutions, you open your mind to a wider range of diverse possibilities that could fill the role.

How can visual representations help with ideation?

The Chart the Course technique converts your verbal understanding of a problem into visual representations like pie charts or line graphs. This engages the automatic system in your brain and helps illuminate hunches you may already have, turning those inklings into fully-fledged ideas.

How much does it cost to build an app with Adalo?

Adalo's web and native mobile builder starts at $36/month with unlimited usage and no record limits on paid plans. Unlike competitors with usage-based charges and data caps, Adalo offers predictable pricing with no bill shock—you can scale without worrying about unexpected costs.