Best when vs. Avoid when

Decide fit before you spend session time.

Best when

The team has multiple concept ideas that need to be compared as communicable narratives rather than as rough sketches or feature lists.
Stakeholders require structured concept storytelling before they can evaluate options — a Crazy 8s board of rough ideas isn't legible enough for the room.
The team is preparing for concept tests and needs each idea packaged in a consistent format so participants can compare fairly.
An internal pitch requires options to be presented at the same level of articulation.

Avoid when

No concept ideas exist yet — use Crazy 8s or Problem Framing first to generate the raw material.
The session must output implementation specs — concept cards communicate the idea and its assumptions, not delivery plans.
Only one concept is being developed — the method's value is in comparing multiple options.

Runbook

The core facilitation flow, with enough structure to run the method confidently in the room.

Standard setup for Mixed in remote delivery.

Total planned time: 120 min

Step 1

Define concept structure

What happens

Agree the required card sections and selection criteria before drafting.

Facilitator does

Write the card structure on the board before anyone starts drafting: audience (who this is for), job (what they're trying to accomplish), value (what this concept makes easier or better), flow (2–3 step narrative of the experience), key assumption (one belief that must be true for this to work), evidence need (one thing to test). Confirm the room agrees on this structure before any cards are started. Concepts packaged in different structures can't be compared.

Participants do

Challenge the structure if any field would be impossible to fill for the concepts in scope — better to adjust the template now than to have half-filled cards at the gallery stage.

Output / signal of success

A shared card template is on the board with agreed fields. Every person in the room understands what goes in each field before concept drafting begins.

Watch for

Teams start drafting before the card structure is confirmed, producing cards that can't be compared because different authors filled different fields.

Recovery tip

Stop drafting. Get all partial cards off the board, re-establish the shared template, and restart with the agreed structure visible as a reference.

Step 2

Draft concept cards

What happens

Each team or individual creates one card per concept.

Facilitator does

Run drafting in focused individual or small-team blocks of 20 minutes. After the first block, pause for a quick 5-minute sanity check: is each card filling the right fields? Is anyone describing features rather than the concept's value? Redirect before full drafting is complete. The key distinction to maintain: the flow section describes what the user does, not what the product does.

Participants do

Fill every field for your concept. If a field can't be filled — particularly "key assumption" — that's important information: the concept doesn't yet have a clear falsifiable claim, which means it can't be properly evaluated or tested. Surface this rather than leaving the field blank.

Output / signal of success

Each concept has a completed card with all fields populated. The flow section describes the user experience, not the product's functionality. The key assumption field contains one testable belief.

Watch for

Cards describe features and product capabilities rather than the user experience the concept would create.

Recovery tip

For each card, cover the title and ask: "Who is this for and what would change in their experience?" If the card can't answer that question, the concept description is feature-led rather than user-led. Rewrite the flow section to start from the user's situation.

Step 3

Gallery walkthrough

What happens

Silent gallery review followed by structured feedback.

Facilitator does

Run the gallery in silence first — 10 minutes for everyone to read all cards without discussion. Then open structured feedback: for each card, one specific "what's compelling" observation and one specific "what's unclear" question. Enforce the structure — no general impressions, no solution suggestions, no merger proposals. The feedback round is for improving clarity, not for selecting or combining concepts.

Participants do

Give feedback against the card's own stated audience and assumption — not against your personal preference for the concept. "I'm not the target audience but this seems clear to me" is valid. "I like this one better" is not useful feedback at this stage.

Output / signal of success

Each card has at least one specific clarity note and one specific open question. The room can identify which concepts are clearly articulated versus which still carry ambiguity in a specific field.

Watch for

Feedback drifts into selection or into solution suggestions rather than staying focused on concept clarity and coherence.

Recovery tip

Refocus. Say: "We're not choosing yet and we're not solving yet — we're checking whether each concept is clearly enough articulated to be evaluable. What specifically is unclear in this card?" Return to the structured feedback format.

Step 4

Select and refine

What happens

Prioritise concepts for prototype or test based on explicit criteria.

Facilitator does

Before voting, write the selection criteria on the board — not general goodness, but specific relevance to the problem: evidence strength (which concept's assumption do we most need to test?), strategic fit (which concept most directly addresses the learning objective?), and differentiation (which concept is most genuinely different from current state?). Vote against these criteria, not against personal preference.

Participants do

Vote for the concept whose assumption you'd most want to test — not the one you'd most want to build. The purpose of concept selection is to identify which ideas deserve further investigation, not to commit to a direction.

Output / signal of success

1–2 concepts are selected for prototyping or testing, with the selection criteria and rationale documented on the board. Rejected concepts are archived with a one-sentence reason, not discarded — they may become relevant later.

Watch for

Selection is driven by familiarity or by the concept's alignment with the existing roadmap rather than by which concept's assumption is most important to test.

Recovery tip

Ask: "Which concept, if its assumption turned out to be wrong, would most change what we build?" If that concept isn't in the selected set, ask why it was deprioritised before closing.

Prep and materials

Prepare the room, the evidence, and the working surface so the session can stay focused on synthesis.

Minimum viable evidence

At least 2–3 distinct concept ideas that have been generated from a prior ideation session (Crazy 8s, LDJ, or equivalent). Running Concept Poster without prior ideation produces one card per team member's existing preference, not a genuinely diverse options set. The room also needs a clear audience definition and a problem statement — without these, cards cannot be evaluated against a shared standard.

Pre-work

Selected ideas
Optional
Markers or digital cards
Optional
Evaluation criteria
Optional
Operational context note
Optional
Bring examples, pain points, or service evidence the room can point to quickly.

Room setup

Remote facilitation choreography
Required
Pre-plan handoffs, breakout usage, and how people rejoin the main board.

Tools / materials

Poster/card template
Required
Shared digital board with timer and voting
Required
Keep instructions and voting visible at all times.

Templates

Concept card template
Optional
Audience, value, flow, assumptions, metrics.
Open reference

Run well / recover fast

Keep the output usable, then use the recovery guidance when the room starts drifting.

What strong output looks like

Make the output legible to both sponsors and delivery owners.
A well-formed concept card set has 2–4 cards, each fully populated with a defined audience, a specific user job, a user-experience-led flow, a falsifiable key assumption, and a named evidence need. All cards use the same template so they can be compared side-by-side. The selected concepts have documented selection rationale. A weak set has cards at different levels of completeness, flows that describe product features, assumption fields left blank or filled with platitudes, and no selection criteria — just a vote count.

What this does not produce

Concept cards produce communicable narratives for evaluation and testing. They do not validate whether the concept works — the assumptions they contain still need testing. A concept card that impresses in a gallery review is a concept worth testing, not a concept worth building. Teams that move from concept cards directly to delivery sprint without a validation step skip the step the method was designed to set up.

Red flags to correct before closing

Over-designing visual polish over clarity.
Using inconsistent card structure.

Re-state decision objective and expected artifact
Timebox discussion and force owner assignment
State what the artifact is confident about versus what still needs tailoring.

Failure mode

Cards describe product features rather than user experiences

Why it happens

Product and engineering participants default to describing what the system does rather than what changes for the user. "The dashboard shows real-time inventory levels" is a feature description. "Stock managers can make purchasing decisions without leaving the current workflow" is an experience description. The distinction requires a deliberate framing shift that the template alone doesn't enforce.

Recover now

If this happens, for the offending card, ask: "Where is the user at the start of this concept, and what are they now able to do that they couldn't before?" Write the answer as the flow section, replacing the feature description.

Prevent next time

Next time, before drafting opens, put two examples on the board — one feature-led flow and one experience-led flow — so the room has a concrete reference for the distinction before they start.

Failure mode

All cards have the same structure and tone because one person dominated drafting

Why it happens

In a room with mixed drafting confidence, the most articulate or most senior person's framing becomes the template for all other cards. Other participants copy the style and structure rather than packaging their concept in its own terms. The gallery produces cards that read like variations on one idea rather than genuinely distinct directions.

Recover now

If this happens, stop collaborative drafting for the remaining concepts. Assign one small team per concept and give them 15 minutes of independent drafting time before any group review. Individual framing produces more genuine differentiation.

Prevent next time

Next time, assign drafting teams before the workshop opens — not by preference but by distributing the strongest and weakest drafters across concepts.

Failure mode

The key assumption field is left blank or filled with a non-falsifiable claim

Why it happens

Writing a testable assumption requires naming something that might be wrong, which feels like undermining the concept. Teams fill the assumption field with beliefs so obviously true ("users want to save time") that they couldn't be falsified, or they leave it blank. A concept with no falsifiable assumption is a concept that can't be properly evaluated.

Recover now

If this happens, for each blank or vague assumption field, ask: "What would we have to observe to know this concept isn't worth building?" Write the inverse of that observation as the assumption. "Users will prefer self-service over agent support for routine queries" is falsifiable. "Users want a good experience" is not.

Prevent next time

Next time, during the template introduction, model one strong assumption ("Users are currently abandoning the checkout at the payment step because they don't trust the security, not because the form is too long") and one weak one ("Users want a faster experience"). Ask the room to evaluate which one they'd actually design a test around.

Adjust for your room

Change the shape of the session only after the fit and runbook are clear.

Open adjustment controlsStandard setup for Mixed in remote delivery.

Session depthChoose how much time and interpretive depth this session can realistically hold.Who this session is forSet the balance between sponsor framing, operational detail, and shared synthesis language.How you will run itOptimize for either physical wall-space or one tightly managed shared board.

Standard variant for Mixed in remote delivery. Waypoint is adapting timing, facilitation emphasis, prep, and recovery guidance here, but the room still needs final tailoring to the exact stakes and participants.

What to do next

Use this after you have checked the fit and know you want to carry the method forward.

The pack is the fastest way to run this now. Use the links below when you need prep, sharing, or a saved reference point.

Jump to prep and materials

References

Sources and references used in this method page.

IDEO Design Kit - Concept Development
IDEO.org concept generation and storytelling methods.
GV Sprint Resources
Sprint ideation and concepting patterns from GV.

Reviewed 2026-04-17 by Discovery Waypoint Editorial Team

Related methods

A short curated set of adjacent methods so the page feels guided, not database-driven.

Use instead when options are still thin

Problem Framing and How Might We

Switch to this if the team is trying to choose too early and needs more directions on the table first.

A framing workshop that aligns on root problem, affected users, and constraints, then converts insights into How Might We prompts.

Use instead when options are still thin

Crazy 8s Ideation

Switch to this if the team is trying to choose too early and needs more directions on the table first.

A rapid sketching exercise where each participant creates eight concepts in eight minutes, followed by clustering and selection.

Use instead when options are still thin

Storyboarding

Switch to this if the team is trying to choose too early and needs more directions on the table first.

A visual sequence of frames that shows how a user experiences a concept over time.

Concept Poster / Concept Cards

Best when vs. Avoid when

Best when

Avoid when

Is this the right room for this method?

Runbook

Define concept structure

Draft concept cards

Gallery walkthrough

Select and refine

Prep and materials

Minimum viable evidence

Pre-work

Room setup

Tools / materials

Templates

Run well / recover fast

What strong output looks like

Red flags to correct before closing

Cards describe product features rather than user experiences

All cards have the same structure and tone because one person dominated drafting

The key assumption field is left blank or filled with a non-falsifiable claim

Adjust for your room

What to do next

Read why this works

References

Known method, unclear next move?

Amazon PRFAQ / Working Backwards

GV Design Sprint

Pixar Braintrust