what-if

What-If Scenarios Technique

**Origin**: Assumption-challenging methodology found across creative problem solving traditions.

**Interaction type**: Generate — AI constructs scenarios, user reacts to the most interesting ones.

How It Works

1. **Identify core assumptions** about the topic (explicit and implicit) 2. **Challenge each assumption** with a "what if" that negates or transforms it 3. **Explore the scenario** — what would the world look like if this were true? 4. **Extract ideas** from the alternate reality

Types of What-If

Constraint Removal

• What if money were no object?
• What if there were no technical limitations?
• What if you had unlimited time?
• What if there were no regulations?

Constraint Inversion

• What if the user had to pay NOT to use it?
• What if it only worked for 5 minutes per day?
• What if it required 100 people to operate?

Context Shift

• What if this existed in 1920? In 2120?
• What if this were designed for children? For astronauts? For animals?
• What if this operated underwater? In zero gravity? In complete darkness?

Scale Shift

• What if 1 billion people used this simultaneously?
• What if it were the size of a building? A molecule?
• What if it lasted 100 years? 100 milliseconds?

Role Reversal

• What if the customer built it and the company used it?
• What if the problem were actually the solution?
• What if success and failure metrics were swapped?

AI Application Notes

When using what-if internally:

1. Identify 2-3 non-obvious assumptions about the topic 2. Pick the most interesting what-if type for each assumption 3. Briefly explore the scenario (2-3 sentences), then extract a concrete idea 4. Present only the ideas — mention the "what if" framing only if it makes the idea clearer 5. Best used when ideas are getting too conventional or practical