Question 1

What is lateral thinking?

Accepted Answer

Lateral thinking is a set of deliberate techniques for producing ideas that step by step reasoning will not reach. Edward de Bono coined the term in 1967 and contrasted it with vertical thinking: vertical thinking digs the same hole deeper, lateral thinking moves sideways and digs elsewhere. It is a procedure rather than a talent. The techniques all work by inserting something arbitrary or deliberately unreasonable between the problem and your answer, which prevents the mind running straight down its most established path. The best known are random entry, provocation, challenge, setting a quota of alternatives, and the concept fan. None of them require creative flair to operate, which is the point de Bono was making; they are tools a disciplined person can pick up and use on a Tuesday afternoon.

Question 2

What are the main lateral thinking techniques?

Accepted Answer

Five carry most of the load. Random entry introduces an unrelated word or image beside the problem and forces a connection, on the principle that an arbitrary entry point reaches parts of the idea space a logical path never crosses. Provocation states something unreasonable, marked PO to signal it is not a proposal, and then looks for the movement it opens rather than judging its truth. Challenge asks why a constraint exists instead of how to satisfy it. Alternatives sets a numeric quota before evaluation begins, because the first ideas are the familiar ones and the quota is what forces you past them. The concept fan works backwards from purpose to concepts to specific ideas, so a failed idea costs you one branch rather than the whole exercise.

Question 3

How do you use the random entry technique?

Accepted Answer

Pick a genuinely random word or image, one you did not choose for relevance, and place it next to your problem. Then list attributes and associations of the random item, and force connections between each association and the problem, writing down whatever the connection suggests however tenuous it looks. The discipline is in not rejecting the random input. If you find yourself picking a word that seems usefully related, you have quietly replaced the technique with ordinary association and the effect is lost. Ask an AI for a noun from a domain you have nothing to do with, or paste a photograph you did not select. On a canvas, put the random item on its own card, fan the associations out around it, and draw connectors to the problem so the chain that produced each idea stays readable afterwards.

Question 4

What is a provocation, and what does PO mean?

Accepted Answer

A provocation is a statement made not because it is true or desirable but because of where it moves your thinking. De Bono coined PO, short for provocative operation, as a marker meaning this statement is a stepping stone rather than a proposal, so nobody wastes time arguing with it. Cars have square wheels. The restaurant charges customers to leave. The rule is that you extract movement before you evaluate: what would have to be true, what is interesting about it, what does it lead to. Square wheels leads to suspension that anticipates the road, which is a real idea. The failure mode is judging the provocation on its merits, which ends the exercise instantly. Writing each provocation on its own card, physically separated from the evaluated ideas, makes the suspension of judgment much easier to hold.

Question 5

Which AI is best for brainstorming?

Accepted Answer

For brainstorming specifically, the useful question is not which model is smartest but which tool keeps the output. Any capable assistant will generate fifty ideas from a prompt, and the general ones are good at it. The problem is what happens next: the ideas arrive as a list in a chat window, you keep three, and the rest are gone along with the thinking that produced them. What makes an AI genuinely useful for brainstorming is that its output lands somewhere you can arrange it, cluster it, connect the ideas that relate, and come back to it next week. That is what Storyflow does: the AI generates to a quota you set and the results land as cards on an infinite canvas you rearrange by hand. It is also the reason a canvas beats a chat window for this particular job, regardless of which model is behind it.

Question 6

What is the best team brainstorming tool?

Accepted Answer

The best tool for a team depends on one thing above all others, which is whether people contribute simultaneously or in turn. Verbal brainstorms fail predictably: the most senior or loudest voice anchors the group in the first two minutes and every subsequent idea orbits it. Any tool where the whole team writes cards at the same time fixes that, and it is the single largest improvement available. Miro and FigJam both do this well and have large template libraries. Storyflow adds two things: an AI that fills the quota when the room runs dry at idea twelve, which is roughly where the interesting ones start, and a canvas that keeps the session so the next one begins past it rather than rediscovering the same ground. For a team in one room, sticky notes on a wall remain completely serious.

Question 7

Is Storyflow a free lateral thinking tool?

Accepted Answer

Not during early access. Storyflow is paid-only right now, with plans from $7.99 a month billed annually, and a Free plan launches before the end of 2026. Anyone a paid member invites to a board joins free today, so a team or a workshop group can participate without everyone paying. If you need something free this minute, FigJam's free tier handles a basic card and connector session well, and a wall of sticky notes remains a completely serious tool for a session where everyone is in the room. What you lose in both cases is the trail: the intermediate provocations tend not to survive the session, and the next one starts from the same familiar path.

Question 8

Can AI do lateral thinking?

Accepted Answer

It can do one part of it very well and cannot do another part at all. The part it does well is volume without self-censoring. The hardest step in the alternatives technique is the last third of the quota, after the sensible options have run out, and a language model will produce thirty provocations without the discomfort that makes a human stop at twelve. It is also a good random entry source, because it has no stake in picking a convenient word. What it cannot do is judge which sideways step is worth taking, because that judgment depends on what you know about your situation, your constraints, and your appetite. Storyflow is built for that division: the AI produces the range and arranges it on the canvas, and the decision about which branch to follow stays yours.

Question 9

How is lateral thinking different from brainstorming?

Accepted Answer

Brainstorming is a group format with social rules, chiefly deferred judgment and building on other people's ideas. Lateral thinking is a set of individual procedures that work whether or not anyone else is present. The practical difference is that brainstorming asks you to think freely and hopes something arrives, while lateral thinking gives you a specific operation to perform when nothing does. That makes them complements rather than alternatives: the most productive sessions we see run a normal divergent round first, notice the ideas have converged on one familiar theme, and then apply random entry or provocation deliberately to break out of it. Running both on the same canvas means the second round can see exactly what the first one produced.

Question 10

What is a concept fan and when should I use one?

Accepted Answer

A concept fan is a diagram that works backwards. Put the purpose on the right, the broad concepts that could serve that purpose to its left, and the specific ideas that implement each concept to the left of those. Reading it right to left answers why, and left to right answers how. Use it when you are stuck on a specific idea and cannot tell whether the idea is wrong or the whole approach is. The fan separates those two failures: if an idea dies you drop back to its concept and generate a different implementation, and only if every concept under a purpose fails do you go back and question the purpose itself. It is the technique that keeps a difficult problem from feeling like starting over each time something does not work, and it is much easier to read as a drawn fan than as a nested list.

Question 11

Can I run a lateral thinking session with a remote team?

Accepted Answer

Yes, and there is a reasonable argument that remote is better for it. The known failure of a verbal session is that the loudest or most senior voice anchors the group early, and every subsequent idea orbits it. Writing cards simultaneously on a shared canvas is the standard fix, and it works the same whether people are in one room on laptops or spread across time zones. In Storyflow, invite the team onto the board and let everyone fill the quota in parallel, then cluster and discuss. Asynchronous rounds work too: leave the provocations on the board overnight and let people add movement in their own hours. Comments attach to the card they concern, so the discussion stays next to the idea instead of scattering into chat.

Question 12

What happens to the ideas after the session?

Accepted Answer

In most tools they get summarised into a document and the intermediate steps are lost, which is why the next session tends to rediscover the same ground. On an infinite canvas nothing has to be thrown away to make room, so the provocations stay next to what they produced and the dead ends stay marked as dead ends. The concepts worth pursuing can then become the actual work on the same board: tasks, owners, a timeline, the research that supports each one, with the thinking that produced them one scroll away. You can also send a view-only link to a stakeholder who only needs to read the outcome, or export the board as a high-quality image or PDF for a write-up.

Start somewhere wrong
on purpose.

Start from a ready-made template

Mind Map

What is lateral thinking?

From a stuck problem to a board of real options.

Open a canvas

State the problem, then break it

Draw the movement

Share or carry it forward

The techniques, with the trail intact.

Twenty provocations, no self-censoring

Keep the movement, not just the conclusion

Drop in something genuinely unrelated

Do not export the good ones somewhere else

Unlimited boards. No object cap.

A canvas is the only surface the techniques actually fit.

Run each technique the way it is meant to be run

An AI that will say the unreasonable thing

Stop starting from the same familiar path

Run a session with people who are not there

Explore templates for your project

Mind Map

Storyflow vs Miro, FigJam, and a wall of sticky notes.

Storyflow

Miro

FigJam

Sticky notes on a wall

What creators are saying

Lateral thinking questions, answered.

Get off the path you already know.

Start somewhere wrong.css-famnbc{display:none;}@media screen and (min-width: 768px){.css-famnbc{display:inline;}} on purpose.

Start from a ready-made template

Mind Map

What is lateral thinking?

From a stuck problem to a board of real options.

Open a canvas

State the problem, then break it

Draw the movement

Share or carry it forward

The techniques, with the trail intact.

Twenty provocations, no self-censoring

Keep the movement, not just the conclusion

Drop in something genuinely unrelated

Do not export the good ones somewhere else

Unlimited boards. No object cap.

A canvas is the only surface the techniques actually fit.

Run each technique the way it is meant to be run

An AI that will say the unreasonable thing

Stop starting from the same familiar path

Run a session with people who are not there

Explore templates for your project

Mind Map

Storyflow vs Miro, FigJam, and a wall of sticky notes.

Storyflow

Miro

FigJam

Sticky notes on a wall

What creators are saying

Lateral thinking questions, answered.

What are the main lateral thinking techniques?

How do you use the random entry technique?

What is a provocation, and what does PO mean?

Which AI is best for brainstorming?

What is the best team brainstorming tool?

Is Storyflow a free lateral thinking tool?

Can AI do lateral thinking?

How is lateral thinking different from brainstorming?

What is a concept fan and when should I use one?

Can I run a lateral thinking session with a remote team?

What happens to the ideas after the session?

Get off the path you already know.

Start somewhere wrong
on purpose.