Awesome Ideation Tools

Introduction

Awesome collection of brainstorming, problem solving, ideation and team building tools. From foresight to overcoming creative blocks, this list contains all the awesome boardgames, canvases and deck of cards that were designed to help you solve a certian problem.

Table of Contents

• Ideation Tools
• Business Model Tools
• Foresight Tools
• Collections
• Design Thinking Tools
• Scrum Tools
• Games
• Self Help
• Designer Tools
• Other Tools
• N/A Tools

Legend

• 💯 - Must have tool.
• ⏬ - Free downloadable version available.
• ❓ - Uncertain if the tool can still be obtained.
• 📱 - App available.

Tools

Ideation Tools

Tools that are designed to help you with the creation of new ideas, let that be business ideas or ides to solve specific problems.

• 75 Tools for Creative Thinking⏬📱 - Deck of cards to help you be creative at the different stages of any process or situation where new ideas are desired.
• Brainstorm Cards - 52 Ways to Generate New Ideas⏬ - Deck of cards to help you brainstorm and come up with new ideas.
• Creative Problem Solving Toolkit❓ - Deck of cards to help you with solving creative problems.
• Doblin Innovation Tactics Cards - Deck of cards to help you innovate, based on the Ten Types of Innovation Framework.
• FrogThink Toolkit - Boardgame containing a flexible set of creative collaboration methods for generating innovative solutions.
• How to Invent Something New: The Innovation Deck❓ - Deck of cards to help you brainstorm new products.
• Idea Canvas - Canvas to help you with your business idea.
• Idea Scoring Tool⏬ - Framework to evaluate and choose between multiple side project ideas.
• Ideation Decks❓ - Deck of card to help you with design ideation.
• Ideo Method Cards - Deck of cards to help you understand the people you are designing for.
• Kalide💯 - Boardgame to help you think of innovative ideas and/or expand the scope of existing ideas.
• Ovam Sis Toolkit - Boardgame to help you in a brainstorming session or design process.
• Triggers: A better way of generating creative ideas - Deck of cards to help you make the ideation process faster and easier.

Business Model Tools

Tools that are designed to help you develop, refine and explore already existing business ideas.

• Bizkit - Korean - Boardgame to help you develope your business idea.
• Business Innovation Kit - Boardgame to help you define a range of ideas and viable business models for a new or existing business.
• Business Model Blocks⏬💯 - Toolkit to help you explore existing or new business ideas.
• Business Model Canvas⏬ - Canvas to help you develop new or document existing business models.
• Game Changer: The Business Innovation Game - Deck of cards to help you create a business model. Works well with Business Model Canvas.
• Happy Startup Canvas⏬ - Canvas inspired by the Business Model Canvas, Lean Canvas and Culture Canvas.
• IPG - Online tool with questions to prepare you for investor meetings.
• IoT Service Kit - Boardgame to help you explore IoT user scenarios.
• ShipIt Journal⏬ - Pamphlet to help you launch your porduct.
• SOFT Ideation Card Game - Korean - Deck of cards to help you brainstorm creative business ideas.
• St. Gallen Business Model Navigator⏬ - Deck of cards and book to help you refine your current business idea.
• YC Interview Practice - Online tool with questions to prepare you for your YC interview.

Foresight Tools

Tools that are designed to help you with foresight, future predictions and trendspotting.

• Dealing with Uncertainty - Online tool to help you stimulate strategic discussions about alternative futures.
• Drivers of Change - Deck of cards to help you investigates key global issues and trends in our societies and markets.
• Envisioning.io💯 - Online tool to help you generate insight on emerging technologies.
  • Past Envisioning Charts - Link to past visualizations from Envisioning.
  • Readiness Framework - Mathematical model to help you assess the development of emerging technologies.
• Future Deck📱 - Deck of cards to help you play through stories from the future.
• Futurescan⏬ - Canvas with 200+ thought-provoking future predictions.
• IMPACT: A Foresight Game - Boardgame to help you think critically and imaginatively about emerging technology and the future of society.
• Lacuna Radar - Online tool that helps you organize and visualize industry trends and technologies.
• NowandNext⏬ - Trend maps created by futurist Richard Watson.
• Nventi - Online platform to help you explore the technological landscape and discover areas ripe for innovation.
• Scenario Exploration System💯⏬ - Bardgame to help you with building scenarios.
• STEEP Foresight Cards - Deck of cards to help you with external analysis.

Collections

Tools that are designed with general problem solving in mind. Rather than focusing on one type of problem they try to aggregate a range of methods, usually resulting in a collection of methods.

• 100% Open Toolkit⏬ - Collection of online methods to helps you along the whole innovation journey.
• 8ideas Innovation Toolkit - Boardgame to help you with brainstorming techniques, observation methods, prototyping and more.
• Design Games⏬ - Collection of fun activities that are primarily used to provide input to a design problem.
• Design Kit - Collection of online methods to help you unleashing your creativity.
  • Physical Version
• Design Method Toolkit - Collection of online problem solving methods based on the design thinking methodology.
• DIY Toolkit⏬ - Collection of methods to help you trigger and support social innovation.
• Hyper Island ToolBox💯 - Collection of methods to help you apply creative collaboration in your team and organization.
• Method Kits⏬ - Collection of card decks, designed to help you develop ideas, and collaborate better.
• Project of How⏬ - Collection of brainstorming methods everyone can start using right away.
• The Gamestorming Cheat Sheet⏬ - Collection of games to help you solve problems.

Design Thinking Tools

Tools that are designed based on the design thinking methodology or try to promote design thinking and service design methodologies.

• CoCo Toolkit💯 - Board game to help you in adapting co-creation activities.
• Design With Intent Toolkit⏬ - Deck of cards to help you design with influencing user behaviour in mind.
• Design Thinking Toolkit - Toolkit that was created to be a design thinking workshop in a box.
• Human-Centered Empathy Toolkit - Korean - Boardgame to help you with scenario building for your product/service.
• Platform Design Toolkit⏬ - Canvases to help you with service design & business modeling.
• Public Service Design⏬ - Book to help you apply service design in public organisations.
• Service Design Development Toolkit - Korean - Boardgame to help you with developing, organizing and evaluating complex systems.
• Service Design Toolkit⏬ - Canvases to help you with introduction to the methodology of service design.
• Service Design Tools - Deck of cards to help you with the design processes that deal with complex systems.
• The Circular Design Guide - Online toolkit with radical, restorative, regenerative approach to business.

Scrum Tools

Tools that are designed to help you with your daily scrum meetings and scrum process.

• Kanban/Scrum Toolkit💯 - Blackboard with magnetic elements to help you with your kanban and scrum process.
• Karty Planning Poker - Polish - Deck of cards to help you plan scrum sprints.
• Moo Planning Poker - Deck of cards to help you plan scrum sprints.
• Planning Poker Cards⏬ - Deck of cards to help you plan scrum sprints.
• Planning Poker Cards - Deck of cards to help your development team during the planning phase of a project.

Games

Tools that are designed with problem solving in mind however they are intended to be games rather than a serious tool.

• Disrupt Cards - Deck of cards to help you have fun before a major decision.
• Disruptus - Boardgame to help you kickstart innovation sessions.
• Égaru - Idea to Market - Deck of cards to help you learn about entrepreneurship.
• Game Seeds - Deck of cards to help you improve your game design skills.
• Launch & Iterate❓ - Deck of cards that simulates the launch of a new product.
• Lego Serious Play - Legos to help you enhance innovation and business performance.
  • Lego Serious Play Card Deck for Trainers❓ - Deck of cards to help you during your Lego Serious Play sessions.
  • Lego Serious Play Communication Cards - Deck of cards about communication made by Lego.
• Pitch Deck - Deck of cards to help you make ridiculous, creative pitches for objectively bad startup ideas.

Self Help

Tools that are designed to help you on a personal level.

• 58 Values - Deck of cards to help you visualise what makes us who we are.
• 100 Questions: Original Edition - Deck of cards to help you start a conversations.
• 100 Questions: Work Edition - Deck of cards to help you start a conversations about you and your working life.
• Brand Deck - Deck of cards to help you figure out who you are.
• Dirty Rethoric💯 - Deck of cards to help you develope your rhetorical techniques.
• Innverida Personal Development Game - Dutch - Deck of cards to help you with awareness and insight into your personal development.
• Seekit - Boardgame that helps you navigate through depression and begin to take more control of your path.
• The School of Life - Collection of books to help you live.

Other Tools

Tools that don't fit into any of the above categories but are lacking in numbers to create a new category for.

• Analytics Cards - Deck of cards to help you explore business insights using Google Analytics.
• Cards for Culture - Deck of cards to help you with strategy development for culture - Museum Edition.
• Card Game for Writing a Book❓ - Deck of cards to help you write a book. WIP.
• Entanglement💯 - Book about a very strange but brilliant concept that you'll have to figure out by yourself.
• Game On! Gamification Toolkit❓ - Boardgame to help you with gamification by designing your own game-based solutions.
• Kernel Cards - Deck of cards to help you create a digital content strategy.
• Learning to Interview Customers - Deck of cards to help you discover deep customer needs and enable innovation.
• Personality Poker - Deck of cards to help you with team building.
• Problem Solution Fit Canvas⏬ - Canvas to help you get insights into customer situations and decision-making processes.
• Running Lean Startup Card Deck - Deck of cards to help you with actionable steps to start a business.
• Strategy Deck⏬📱 - Deck of online cards to help you with your communication strategy.
• The Oblique Strategies - Deck of cards to help you get unstuck. Made in 1975 with muicians in mind.
  • Online Version

Designer Tools

For some reason there are a lot of tools with designers in mind. So they get their own category.

• Brains, Behavior & Design Toolkit - Toolkit to help you apply concepts from behavioral economics.
• Designercise - Boardgame to help you with creative thinking and ideation.
• Stormdeck - Sparking inspiration for graphic designers - Deck of cards to help you with design inspiration and communication.
• Human Drives Cards - Deck of cards to help you with ideation and co-design sessions.
• IXD Checklist - Online UI/UX Checklist.
• Microsoft Inclusive Design Toolkit⏬ - Toolkit to help you incorporate design principles in your activities.
• UX Cards - Online list of UX principles.
• UX Flowchart Cards - Deck of cards to help you design and build websites.
• UX Techniques - Online list of UX techniques ato help you with development of your project.
• The Design Deck - Deck of cards that doubles as a practical guide to graphic design.

Not Available Tools

Tools that are either a concept design or were designed for a private organization and are not available for the public.

• Creative Collaborations Toolkit - Workshop tool designed for the Creative Exchange & the University Of Surrey.
• Design Thinking Playing Card Deck - Deck of cards to help you spread design thinking methodology in your organizations.
• Game Dynamics Playdeck - Deck of cards to help you create the perfect game, crated by SCVNGR.
• Games Atelier: Tangent - Deck of cards to help you develop game design skills through weekly game jams.
• Girl Effect - Boardgame created by Nike Foundation Girl Effect charity.
• Ideation at 20Creathon - Canvas toolkit created for the Sustainability Challenge.
• Reality Comitte - Underground collaborative media-making game for 10 or more players.
• Scrum Box - Boardgame to help you with your daily scrum.
• The Performance Coaching and Counseling Toolkit - Boardgame designed for and is currently being used by the TransCanada Corporation.
• The Pitch - Concept design boardgame about pitching your idea.
• The Thing From The Future - Deck of cards that challenges you to describe objects from a range of alternative futures.

Lists

Links to websites that try, to some degree, to create a list like this one.

• Consultant Stack - Precursor website to this list.
• Deckaholick - Website that collects card deck style tools.
• Emergent by Design - Older blog post that lists several tools.
• Innovation Management - Lists several older tools.
• MethodKit - Nice blog post with a lot of tools.

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