Balancing Convergent and Divergent Thinking

Illustration by Orquídea Campbell-Espinoza. Learn more about our illustrators.

Balancing Convergent and Divergent Thinking

As we’ve previously written about, so much of a design process is making intentional, iterative choices. In our processes, we often think about this as alternating between divergent and convergent ways of thinking. Employing these two ways of thinking are great ways to apply the mindsets of design, including non-linear thinking, creativity, accepting ambiguity, and iteration. Let’s dig in! 

What’s the difference between divergent and convergent thinking? 

The Design Council introduced the Double Diamond as a visual illustration of decision points in the design process, where a project expands through divergent thinking and then narrows through convergent thinking to a decision, and then repeats. The divergent thinking moments in the Double Diamond are where creative ideas and many perspectives and potential solutions are explored. The project mindset is expansive, and team discussions include many “yes, ands.” There are lots of ways to foster and enable divergent thinking — including brainstorming, observing the behavior of many people, using AI assistants, gathering best practices and case studies, and more. In complement, the convergent thinking moments are where the many ideas and possible paths are prioritized and narrowed, and typically uses a logical or rational approach to determine the process of narrowing. (One more plug for our previous post about setting intentional criteria.) At these stages, the project mindset is focused, and the discussions are oriented around “no to A and B, so we can really follow through on C.”

Why is it important to have both divergent and convergent thinking in a process? 

Divergent thinking can be fun! It presents new ideas, new and interesting learnings, and allows people to be creative. But to make progress on problems, we have to move from exploration and learning about possibilities into action, and “turning on” convergent thinking makes that much easier to do. When there’s a big pool of possibilities, there will never be enough time and resources to try moving all of them forward — and not all of them will be worth advancing to action! There’s a balance; we don’t want to jump to implementing the first idea that comes to mind, but we also don’t want to spend too long in divergent thinking and delay implementing anything while a problem persists. 

How do we know when we should be divergent in our approach versus convergent? 

Divergent and convergent thinking should match where you are in the project process and flow. At the start of a project, when you’re still trying to figure out what you’re focused on, you want to leave enough room for expansive, divergent thinking. But right before a deadline might not be the time to be wildly divergent, since you may not have enough time to then find convergence and alignment while still staying on schedule. Think about giving each of these stages enough time to feel meaningful but not exhaustive. You need to reserve enough energy to keep going in the process! 

It’s also important to make sure the whole team is on board whether you’re in a convergent or divergent moment. Setting expectations, and letting people know when there will be a chance to switch to the opposite way of thinking, can help have everyone pull in the same direction. Not everyone feels comfortable with divergent thinking, and it can take practice and a safe system to help some folks actively participate. 

How can I get better at operating in a divergent or convergent way? 

Often, we have a default state that we operate in. We might feel most natural spitballing ideas, or most comfortable assessing constraints to determine what’s possible. It’s important to notice what your default state is, and where you feel most comfortable. From there, you can both challenge yourself to practice the other mindset, and be sure that you are working with teams that have people who operate differently than you. Notice what helps you feel comfortable working in the other approach, and set up your projects to encourage those practices. One thing we do is set clear project schedules with cycles that align with these stages, so team members can know when to expect each. 

Why do we need to be intentional about both divergent and convergent thinking? 

Within a design process, we need to have limits and constraints on both divergent and convergent thinking. At each iterative diverging or converging stage, the limits and criteria may change, as they should build on previous strategic choices. For example, as you move through the process, you will likely keep returning to divergent thinking, but the new divergent options you’ll raise will be within the convergent decisions you already made. So, if you start your project thinking about all the ways to help neighbors meet each other, but decide to focus on block parties, your next round of divergent thinking will focus on ideas that are within the category of block parties. 

Convergent thinking requires thoughtful application of criteria for decision making, and there’s lots of tools that can help with narrowing — from voting software to qualitative decision making tools. Depending on your context and who’s part of the convergent process, you can go as low-tech as you want (including raising hands or having people vote with dot stickers). In addition to selecting criteria, convergent processes should also be intentional about who’s involved, how much time is allocated to discussion, and what happens to ideas that don’t move forward. 

How have you been using convergent and divergent thinking in your work? Are there approaches that have worked well, or any you’d like to try out? Let us know in the comments, or at hello@publicdesignbureau.com.