2025-04-14

Inverted Crazy 8's

Inverted Crazy 8's combines Crazy 8's, Worst Possible Idea, and Charlie Munger's Inversion Principle. It combines them to turn bad ideas into good ideas.

I'm allergic to those who introduce unnecessary complexity. Think consultants without skin in the game. I wanted to avoid techniques such "professionals" might use to "push the envelope" in an ideation session. I didn't believe their techniques would generate anything other than a headache. My solution - Inverted Crazy 8's - is an ideation technique to generate overlooked ideas.

Inverted Crazy 8's combines Crazy 8's, Worst Possible Idea, and the great Charlie Munger's Inversion Principle. It combines them to turn bad ideas into good ideas.

The Inverted Crazy 8's technique involves generating eight bad ideas in eight minutes to solve a user problem. Each idea must include a descriptive title and a fat marker sketch. This inversion silences the monkey mind, removes group pressure, and avoids analysis paralysis. That's because it is easier to recognise bad ideas than good ones.

The four least worst ideas can then be selected, inverted, and Shaped Up to assess their potential to solve a user problem. Inverted Crazy 8's flips conventional techniques to ideate solutions for a user problem.

I created this Inverted Crazy 8's public template on Figma to use the ideation technique. It can be edited to suit specific needs. I would appreciate a backlink if Inverted Crazy 8's is used and proves useful.

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