Alternative Worlds

The goals are to:

• Escape industry conventions by exploring solutions from different domains.


• Generate fresh perspectives through cross-industry analogies.


• Identify transferable principles from unexpected sources.


• Break the team out of "this is how we've always done it" thinking.

You'll get:

• Fresh perspectives from alternative contexts.


• Broken assumptions through analogy.


• Creative solutions adapted from other domains.

Not all analogies are useful. Good alternative worlds have similar challenges but different solutions, different constraints that forced creativity, and success stories. Avoid worlds too similar (banking looking at insurance) or absurd (banking looking at deep-sea fishing). Stretch, not nonsense. Teams will grab visible features: "Apple stores have open layouts, so we need an open layout!" Push deeper. Why? To reduce anxiety, encourage exploration. What principle is at work? "Remove barriers." Apply that principle. When someone says "That won't work here," redirect: "What principle is at work? How might we achieve the same effect given our constraints?" Change "we can't" to "how might we?" Explore 2-3 worlds deeply or 5-6 superficially. Deep is better. Surface exploration yields superficial borrowing. If nobody knows much about the alternative world, ideas will be shallow. Consider brief research beforehand. Informed analogies beat invented ones. Write principles, not features. "Netflix autoplay reduces decision fatigue" is a principle. "Netflix has an autoplay button" is just observation. Note: 1) What they do, 2) Why it works, 3) Principle, 4) Possible adaptation. If participants are skeptical ("We're a bank, not a theme park!"), acknowledge the difference, then push forward: "But theme parks manage customer anxiety. What can we learn?" If a world yields nothing, you picked the wrong world. Don't force it. Move on. Some analogies are more productive; that's fine. The exercise succeeds if even one world yields useful principles.