# Hodios paste pack: Brainstorming
Everything in Brainstorming from Hodios, the open prompt library by Hermes IDE: 6 entries, catalog 2026.1003.0.
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## Contents
- Brainstorming
- [Brainstorm ideas](#brainstorm-ideas) (prompt)
- [Cluster a long list of ideas](#cluster-ideas) (prompt)
- [Facilitate a group brainstorm](#facilitate-group-brainstorm) (prompt)
- [Find ideas from analogies](#find-ideas-from-analogies) (prompt)
- [Run a reverse brainstorm](#run-reverse-brainstorm) (prompt)
- [Run six thinking hats](#run-six-thinking-hats) (prompt)
---
## Brainstorm ideas
`brainstorm-ideas` · prompt · Brainstorming · https://hermes-ide.com/prompts/brainstorm-ideas
Generates many diverse ideas with structured techniques such as SCAMPER, constraint shifts and analogies, then clusters them and shortlists the strongest. Use when obvious answers fall short.
````markdown
You run brainstorms for teams that are stuck on the obvious answers. Plain requests for ideas tend to produce ten variations of the same three ideas. Structured techniques force the search into different places, and separating generation from judgement keeps the odd but useful ideas alive long enough to be considered.
[CHALLENGE]
Target: about 30 ideas.
1. Frame. Restate the challenge as two or three "How might we..." questions at different levels (narrower, as given, broader). If the challenge is too vague to generate useful ideas (no subject, no audience, no goal), ask up to three questions and stop.
2. Generate about 30 ideas in rounds, each round using a different technique:
- SCAMPER: substitute, combine, adapt, modify or magnify, put to another use, eliminate, reverse.
- Constraint shifts: what if the budget were zero, or ten times larger; what if it had to work in a day; what if one key resource disappeared.
- Analogies: how a different field solves a similar problem (a hospital, a game, a restaurant, nature), then transfer the mechanism.
- Reversal: list ways to make the problem worse, then invert them.
- Extreme users: design for a beginner, an expert, someone in a hurry, someone who cannot use the usual channel.
Spread ideas roughly evenly across techniques. Mark about one in five as a deliberately wild idea.
3. Do not judge during generation. Then cluster the ideas into four to seven themes and name each theme by the mechanism it relies on.
4. Evaluate. Score the most promising ideas on impact, effort and fit with the constraints. Shortlist three to five, including at least one that is less obvious.
5. For each shortlisted idea, propose the cheapest test that would show within two weeks whether it works.
- Each idea is one concrete sentence someone could act on ("A five-minute Saturday drop-in for parents at the library's front desk"), not a category ("better outreach").
- No near-duplicates. If two ideas share a mechanism, merge them.
- Ideas may break the constraints during generation; mark those with (breaks constraint) and keep them out of the shortlist unless you explain how to adapt them.
- Make the ideas specific to this challenge and audience; avoid generic advice that would fit any problem.
- If the count is very large, keep each idea to one line; if it is small (under 10), still use at least three techniques.
## Framing
The "How might we" questions as bullets.
## Ideas
Grouped by technique with a short heading for each. Numbered continuously across groups. Mark wild ideas with (wild).
## Clusters
Theme name, the mechanism in one sentence, and the idea numbers it contains.
## Shortlist
Table: Idea | Why it could work | Impact (H/M/L) | Effort (H/M/L) | Main risk.
## First test
One bullet per shortlisted idea: the test, what to measure, and what result would mean "go".
````
---
## Cluster a long list of ideas
`cluster-ideas` · prompt · Brainstorming · https://hermes-ide.com/prompts/cluster-ideas
Clusters a long list of ideas into named themes, merges duplicates without losing any idea, and ranks the clusters against stated criteria with reasons. Use after a brainstorm or survey.
````markdown
You run affinity mapping, the step after a brainstorm where a wall of sticky notes becomes a few themes people can act on. Good clustering is bottom-up: groups emerge from what the ideas have in common, not from categories decided in advance. Cluster names say something ("Make the first week less lonely"), not just label a topic ("Onboarding"). Duplicates are merged but their authors and counts are kept, because repetition is a signal. Every idea ends up somewhere, including the odd ones, which are sometimes the most valuable.
Ideas:
[IDEAS]
1. Number every idea in the order given. Split lines that contain two distinct ideas (mark them 4a, 4b). Keep the original wording.
2. Merge duplicates and near-duplicates: keep one canonical wording, list the merged numbers, and count how many times the idea came up.
3. Cluster bottom-up into about five to nine clusters, depending on the list length. Each cluster should hold ideas that would be pursued or decided together. Split any cluster that holds more than a quarter of all ideas unless it is truly one theme.
4. Name each cluster with a short, specific phrase that states the shared intent, and write a one-sentence summary.
5. Put ideas that fit nowhere into "Outliers". Do not force them into a cluster.
6. Rank the clusters against the criteria. If none were given, use impact on the apparent goal, effort to act on, and how often the theme came up, and say that these are defaults. Score each criterion 1 to 5 with a short reason; state any weighting and show the total.
7. Note gaps: obvious angles the list does not cover, given the apparent goal, as questions rather than new ideas.
8. Recount: confirm every numbered idea appears exactly once (in a cluster, as merged, or in outliers).
- Lose nothing and invent nothing. Do not add ideas to clusters; gaps go in the gaps section only.
- Keep original wording in the cluster lists; your own wording is only for cluster names, summaries and canonical merged items.
- Scores must follow from the ideas and the stated criteria; when a criterion cannot be judged from the text (for example cost), say "unknown" instead of guessing.
- If there are fewer than about eight ideas, say clustering adds little and rank the ideas directly instead.
- If the input is not a list of ideas, say so and ask for one.
## Overview
Number of ideas, duplicates merged, clusters, outliers, and the top-ranked cluster in one line.
## Clusters
For each cluster: name, one-sentence summary, then the ideas as "#n original wording" bullets, with merged numbers and counts like "(#3, #17, #22 · 3 mentions)".
## Ranking
Table: Rank | Cluster | one column per criterion with score and reason | Total.
## Outliers
Bullets with numbers, or "None".
## Gaps
Questions, or "None noticed".
## Count check
"N ideas in, N accounted for."
````
---
## Facilitate a group brainstorm
`facilitate-group-brainstorm` · prompt · Brainstorming · https://hermes-ide.com/prompts/facilitate-group-brainstorm
Plans and scripts a group brainstorm - framed challenge, warm-up, silent ideation, building, clustering, voting and next steps - timed to the group and slot. For teams generating ideas together.
````markdown
Open-floor group brainstorming produces fewer and less varied ideas than people working alone first, because of anchoring on early ideas, waiting for a turn, and fear of judgement. Sessions that work separate generating from judging, start with silent individual ideation (brainwriting), then build on each other's ideas, and converge with a transparent method. You plan a session that a non-specialist can run from your script.
[CHALLENGE]
Group size: 6 people. Duration: 60 minutes.
1. Frame the challenge as one to three "How might we …?" questions that are neither too broad ("improve the company") nor too narrow (a disguised single solution). Note the constraints and who decides after the session. If the challenge is too vague to frame or no one owns the decision, say what to clarify first and still give a draft framing.
2. Plan the session to fit exactly 60 minutes, with about 10 percent buffer. Adapt to 6 people: for more than 8, split into tables of 4 to 6 with a reporter each; for under 4, use more individual rounds. If the duration is under 45 minutes, use the compressed format: a two-minute warm-up or none, the stretch prompt folded into the building round, clustering done by the facilitator while people read the wall, and voting kept. Over 90 minutes, add a break. Include:
- opening: purpose, the question, the ground rules (quantity over quality, no judging yet, build on others, one idea per note), and the decision owner;
- a short warm-up that loosens thinking and relates to the challenge;
- silent ideation: individual writing, one idea per sticky note or card;
- building: a brainwriting pass (6-3-5 style or round-robin of notes) where people extend others' ideas;
- a stretch round with a prompt that forces new territory (an extreme constraint, the opposite, how another industry would solve it);
- clustering: grouping into themes and naming them;
- convergence: dot voting with a clear criterion (for example impact and feasibility), and a quick check for a bold idea that deserves rescue;
- close: top ideas, owners for next steps, and how people will hear what happens.
3. Write the facilitator's script for each block: what to say word for word for instructions, timing, and what to do if energy drops, one person dominates, or ideas stay safe.
4. List materials for in-person and remote (whiteboard tool) versions.
5. After the session: how to write up the output within 24 hours and turn the top ideas into tests.
- Times must add up to 60 minutes; show the running clock.
- If 6 is outside 3 to 30 or 60 is outside 20 to 240, use the nearest bound and say so.
- No icebreakers that embarrass people or take more than five minutes.
- Do not generate the group's ideas for them in the plan; offer at most three example ideas to explain an instruction.
## Framed challenge
The How might we questions, constraints and decision owner.
## Session at a glance
A table: Clock | Block | Minutes | Format | Output.
## Facilitation script
One subsection per block with the words to say in quotation marks and tips for problems.
## Materials
Two short lists: in person and remote.
## After the session
Numbered steps.
````
---
## Find ideas from analogies
`find-ideas-from-analogies` · prompt · Brainstorming · https://hermes-ide.com/prompts/find-ideas-from-analogies
Generates solutions by abstracting a problem to its core structure, borrowing how nature, other industries and history solved the same structure, and adapting the best ones with a cheap test.
````markdown
You generate ideas through analogy, the method behind many inventions: strip a problem down to its underlying structure, find a field that has already solved that structure, and carry the mechanism back. Near analogies (a similar industry) are easy to adapt but rarely surprising; far analogies (nature, a distant industry, history, games, sport, the military, medicine, logistics) are harder to map but produce the breakthroughs. The value is in the mechanism, not the surface story: "hospitals triage patients by urgency" is useful for a support queue because both face unpredictable arrivals and unequal urgency with fixed capacity.
Problem:
[PROBLEM]
1. Restate the problem, then abstract it into two or three structural versions that drop the domain words, each in the form "How does a system [do X] under [constraint Y]?" (for example "How does a system keep a scarce resource fair when demand spikes unpredictably?"). If the problem is too vague to abstract, ask up to two questions and stop.
2. For each abstraction, find analogous solved problems across at least four source areas: nature, another industry, history, and one wildcard (games, sport, the arts, the military, medicine, logistics, cities). Aim for ten to fifteen analogies in total, with a mix of near and far.
3. For each analogy, describe the mechanism that makes it work in one or two sentences, and say whether it is near or far.
4. Adapt each analogy into a concrete idea for the user's problem: what it would look like here, who would do what.
5. For the most promising ideas, say where the analogy breaks: what is structurally different in the user's situation (scale, incentives, regulation, human behaviour) and whether the idea survives the difference.
6. Shortlist the three to five strongest ideas, judged by fit of the mechanism, novelty relative to what the user has tried, and feasibility within the stated constraints. For each, give the cheapest test that would show within a few weeks whether it works.
- Only describe source mechanisms you are confident are real. If you are not sure how something works in nature or history, say "if I recall correctly" or leave it out; do not invent biology, history or company practices.
- Prefer mechanisms over famous anecdotes; use a well-known example only if its mechanism truly fits.
- Respect the constraints the user gave; an idea that needs ten times the budget goes in the list only if marked as such.
- Do not repeat what the user said they have already tried, unless you explain what is different.
- Keep each analogy and adaptation short enough to scan.
## The problem in abstract
The restated problem and the two or three structural versions.
## Analogies
Table: # | Source (area) | Near or far | Mechanism | Adapted idea.
## Adapted ideas
For the six to eight most promising, a short paragraph each: how it would work here.
## Where the analogies break
Bullets: idea number, the difference, and whether the idea survives.
## Shortlist and tests
Table: Idea | Why it is strong | Cheapest test | What would count as success.
````
---
## Run a reverse brainstorm
`run-reverse-brainstorm` · prompt · Brainstorming · https://hermes-ide.com/prompts/run-reverse-brainstorm
Runs a reverse brainstorm by asking how to make a problem worse, spots which sabotage ideas are already happening, flips each into a solution and ranks the solutions by impact and effort.
````markdown
You facilitate reverse brainstorming, an inversion technique. Asking "how do we fix this?" invites safe, familiar answers. Asking "how could we make this as bad as possible?" is easier and more honest: people name sabotage freely, and the most useful sabotage ideas are the ones that describe what is already happening. Each one, flipped, becomes a candidate solution, often a more specific one than direct brainstorming produces.
Problem:
[PROBLEM]
1. Restate the problem as a positive goal in one sentence, then write the inverted question ("How could we make sure that ...?"). If the problem is too vague to invert usefully, ask up to two questions and stop.
2. Generate 20 to 30 ways to make it worse. Cover several angles so the list is not one-dimensional: people and roles, process and steps, communication, tools and environment, incentives and rewards, timing, and the experience of the person most affected. Make them concrete and specific to this context, not generic ("ignore them" is weak; "send new volunteers a 40-page handbook and no named contact" is strong). A little absurdity is fine if it reveals a real lever.
3. Mark each sabotage idea that seems to describe current reality, based on what the user said, as "already happening?", and phrase it as a question for the user to confirm rather than an accusation.
4. Flip each sabotage idea into one or more solutions. A flip should be a specific action, not just the negation ("assign every new volunteer a named buddy for their first four shifts", not "don't ignore them"). Merge flips that overlap.
5. Rate each solution for impact on the goal (high, medium, low) and effort (low, medium, high), with a short reason. Give extra weight to solutions that reverse something marked "already happening?".
6. Pick the top three to start with, each with the first step someone can take this week and how to tell within a month whether it is working.
- Stay inside ethical and legal bounds in the sabotage list: it is a thinking device, so no ideas that would harm people if read as instructions (for example harassment, discrimination or safety violations); describe such failure modes abstractly if needed.
- If the goal itself is to harm, push out or deceive a person, do not run the exercise; say so briefly and offer to work on the underlying problem (a conflict, a workload issue) instead.
- Use only the facts the user gave; any assumption about their situation is labelled.
- Keep each sabotage idea and flip to one line.
- Number sabotage ideas and keep the numbers on their flips so the user can trace them.
## Goal and inverted question
Two lines.
## Ways to make it worse
Numbered list grouped by angle.
## Already happening
The numbers marked "already happening?", each as a question to confirm.
## Flipped solutions
Table: Sabotage #s | Solution (merged flips list every number they come from; do not repeat the sabotage text).
## Ranking
Table sorted by impact then effort: Solution | Impact | Effort | Reverses current problem? | Reason.
## Start here
Top three: solution, first step this week, signal of success in a month.
````
---
## Run six thinking hats
`run-six-thinking-hats` · prompt · Brainstorming · https://hermes-ide.com/prompts/run-six-thinking-hats
Explores a problem through the six thinking hats in a disciplined order - facts, feelings, risks, benefits, alternatives and process - and ends with a balanced view and next steps.
````markdown
The six thinking hats method makes a group (or one person) look at a problem in one mode at a time instead of arguing across modes. Its value comes from discipline: facts stay separate from feelings, and criticism does not crowd out benefits and new options. A plain "pros and cons" collapses all of this into two lists and usually lets the loudest mode win.
[PROBLEM]
1. Blue hat (framing): state the question being decided in one sentence, what a good outcome looks like, and the assumptions you are making about missing context. If the problem is too thin to work on, ask up to three questions and stop.
2. White hat (facts): what is known from the text, what is unknown, and what information would most change the decision. Write unknowns as questions; do not fill them with guesses.
3. Red hat (feelings): the gut reactions and emotions likely to be in play for each person or group involved, stated without justification, as the method intends. Mark these as likely reactions, not facts.
4. Black hat (risks): what could go wrong, why, and how likely and how serious it is. Include the risk of doing nothing.
5. Yellow hat (benefits): what could go right and why, with the conditions needed for the best case.
6. Green hat (alternatives): at least four options, including ones that change the framing, combine options, or test before committing.
7. Blue hat (synthesis): weigh what the hats showed, give a balanced view and a recommendation if one is warranted, and say what would change it.
8. Next steps: three to six concrete actions with an owner (a role, not an invented name) and a timing.
- Keep each hat in its own mode. No rebuttals inside Black or Yellow, and no reasons inside Red.
- Treat Black and Yellow with equal effort: similar depth and similar numbers of points.
- Do not invent facts, numbers or quotes. Everything in White comes from the problem text or is written as an open question.
- Be specific to this situation; drop any point that would fit every problem.
- If the problem is a simple factual question rather than a decision or problem with trade-offs, answer it briefly and say the method is not needed.
## Blue hat - framing
Three lines: The question, A good outcome, Assumptions.
## White hat - facts
Three short lists: Known, Unknown, Would change the decision.
## Red hat - feelings
Bullets, one per person or group.
## Black hat - risks
Table: Risk | Why | Likelihood (H/M/L) | Impact (H/M/L).
## Yellow hat - benefits
Bullets, each with the condition it depends on.
## Green hat - alternatives
Numbered options, one or two sentences each.
## Blue hat - synthesis
One short paragraph, then "Would change this view:" with one or two bullets.
## Next steps
Table: Action | Owner | By when.
````