BMAD Brainstorm

Structured ideation harness for the BMAD planning lifecycle. Produces a brainstorming-report.md of organized ideas and insights ready to feed downstream planning skills (product-brief, PRD, architecture).

Three Intents

Ask the user which intent applies — or infer from context:

| Intent | When to use | |--------|-------------| | Create | New brainstorming session on a topic or problem | | Update | Add techniques, deepen coverage, or incorporate new constraints | | Validate | Confirm generated insights align with project goals or decision-log |

Technique Menu

| Technique | Best For | Approx Time | |-----------|----------|-------------| | 5 Whys | Root cause analysis | 10-15 min | | SCAMPER | Feature ideation & creative variations | 20-30 min | | Mind Mapping | Idea organization & hierarchy | 15-20 min | | Reverse Brainstorming | Risk and failure-mode identification | 15-20 min | | Six Thinking Hats | Multi-perspective evaluation | 30-45 min | | Starbursting | Question exploration (Who/What/When/Where/Why/How) | 20-30 min | | SWOT Analysis | Strategic positioning | 30-45 min | | Brainwriting | Silent parallel idea generation | 15-20 min |

Technique Selection Guide

• Exploring a problem? → 5 Whys, then Starbursting
• Generating features or solutions? → SCAMPER, Mind Mapping
• Assessing risk or failure modes? → Reverse Brainstorming, Six Thinking Hats (Black Hat)
• Strategic planning or positioning? → SWOT, Six Thinking Hats (full cycle)
• Need parallel idea volume? → Brainwriting

Session Workflow

Use TodoWrite to track each step.

1. Gather context — Ask: topic/problem, relevant constraints, which BMAD track is active
2. Read project context — Load bmad-output/project-context.md and bmad-output/decision-log.md if present
3. Select techniques — Choose 2-4 complementary techniques; confirm with user
4. Execute sessions — Apply each technique systematically (diverge first, do not filter)
5. Organize ideas — Categorize all generated ideas; label Impact (H/M/L) and Feasibility (H/M/L)
6. Extract insights — Identify top 3-5 actionable insights across all techniques
7. Identify risks — Capture risks surfaced during ideation
8. Produce report — Fill templates/brainstorm-session.template.md; save to output folder
9. Update decision-log — Record key decisions or directions confirmed during the session
10. Recommend next steps — Which BMAD skill to engage next

Script Utilities

Generate SCAMPER prompts for a specific topic:

bash
bash "${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/skills/bmad-brainstorm/scripts/scamper-prompts.sh" "your topic"

Generate a SWOT analysis scaffold:

bash
bash "${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/skills/bmad-brainstorm/scripts/swot-template.sh" "your subject" > bmad-output/swot-draft.md

Output Artifacts

All artifacts go under the user-configured output folder (default bmad-output/).

| File | Description | |------|-------------| | bmad-output/brainstorming-report.md | Primary output — organized ideas + insights | | bmad-output/decision-log.md | Append key decisions made during session | | bmad-output/swot-draft.md | Optional SWOT scaffold (from script) |

Use templates/brainstorm-session.template.md for the report structure.

Subagent Strategy

For sessions covering multiple techniques in parallel, fan out one agent per technique.

Pattern: Fan-Out Ideation Agents: 2-6 parallel (one per selected technique)

| Agent | Task | Output | |-------|------|--------| | Agent 1 | Apply SCAMPER to generate feature variations | bmad-output/brainstorm-scamper.md | | Agent 2 | Build Mind Map to organize ideas hierarchically | bmad-output/brainstorm-mindmap.md | | Agent 3 | Reverse Brainstorming — identify failure modes | bmad-output/brainstorm-risks.md | | Agent 4 | Six Thinking Hats — multi-perspective analysis | bmad-output/brainstorm-hats.md | | Agent 5 | Starbursting — Who/What/When/Where/Why/How | bmad-output/brainstorm-questions.md | | Agent 6 | SWOT Analysis — strategic positioning | bmad-output/brainstorm-swot.md |

Coordination:

1. Write brainstorming objective to bmad-output/brainstorm-objective.md
2. Select 2-6 techniques; launch one agent per technique with context path
3. Each agent generates 10-20 ideas/insights using its assigned technique
4. Main context synthesizes all outputs into bmad-output/brainstorming-report.md
5. Extract top 3-5 actionable insights; append decisions to bmad-output/decision-log.md

Example subagent prompt:

Task: Apply SCAMPER technique
Context: Read bmad-output/brainstorm-objective.md for topic and constraints
Output: Write 15-20 creative variations to bmad-output/brainstorm-scamper.md

Apply each SCAMPER letter systematically. Generate 2-4 ideas per letter.
For each idea: one-sentence description, potential value, innovation level
(incremental / breakthrough). Conclude with your top 3 most promising ideas.
Do not implement anything — ideation output only.

BMAD Fidelity Notes

• This skill feeds Phase 1 (Analysis) and Phase 2 (Planning). Insights flow into

the product-brief and PRD skills.

• Insights that become commitments must be logged in bmad-output/decision-log.md.
• This skill does not produce stories. It produces raw insight material that

upstream skills (product-manager, system-architect) refine into epics and stories.

• Scale-adaptive tracks apply: Quick Flow sessions may use 1-2 techniques; Enterprise

sessions should apply 4-6 for comprehensive coverage.

Guiding Principles

1. Diverge before converging — generate volume first; filter later
2. Structured over freeform — every technique has a defined process; follow it
3. Document everything — capture all ideas; even "bad" ones can spark breakthroughs
4. Quantify insights — numbers make insights actionable (market size, feature counts)
5. Cross-pollinate — consider how other industries or domains solve the same problem
6. No implementation — this skill plans; it never writes code or runs tests

> --- > Part of the BMAD Planning & Orchestrator plugin — a Claude Code harness for the BMAD Method by the BMAD Code Organization (https://github.com/bmad-code-org/BMAD-METHOD). Implements the spirit of bmad-brainstorming. All methodology credit belongs to the BMAD Code Organization.