Crazy 8s

Purpose

Generate a high volume of visually expressed solution concepts in a very short time by forcing participants to sketch eight distinct ideas in eight minutes. The extreme time pressure suppresses self-censorship and perfectionism, producing rougher but more diverse concepts than untimed sketching.

When to Use

Use Crazy 8s when:

• Solutions benefit from visual representation (interfaces, physical products, service touchpoints, spatial layouts)
• Time is very limited (design sprint contexts)
• Participants tend toward verbal over-analysis; sketching forces concreteness
• You want individual ideation before group discussion (prevents anchoring)

Do NOT use when:

• Solutions are primarily process, policy, or business-model innovations (hard to sketch meaningfully) —use Structured Brainstorming or SCAMPER instead
• Participants are strongly sketch-averse and time does not allow coaching—use Brainwriting 6-3-5 (text-based) instead

Sample Size and Duration

Participants: 4–12 (optimal: 5–7)

Duration: 8 minutes sketching + 5–10 minutes gallery walk = 15–20 minutes total

Expected output: 6–8 sketch concepts per participant; 30–60 across a team of 5–7

Prerequisites

• “How might we…” prompt clearly posted
• A4 or A3 paper, folded into 8 panels (one panel per idea)
• Thick marker pen per participant (forces simplicity —no fine detail)
• Timer
• 4–12 participants
• 15 minutes (8 minutes sketching + setup and debrief)

Complete Procedure

Step 1: Prepare (3 minutes)

1. Distribute one sheet of paper per participant, folded into 8 equal panels
2. Post the HMW prompt
3. Explain: “You have 8 minutes to sketch 8 different ideas—one per panel, roughly 1 minute each. They can be ugly. They must be different, not variations of the same idea. Stick figures and boxes are fine. Labels and annotations welcome. Go.”

Step 2: Sketch (8 minutes, strictly timed)

1. Start timer. Announce each minute transition (“Move to panel 2… panel 3…”)
2. Silence throughout—no discussion, no looking at neighbours
3. If a participant finishes early, they add annotations or attempt a 9th idea

Step 3: Gallery Walk and Dot Voting (5–10 minutes, optional in A2.1)

1. Pin all sheets on wall
2. Silent review: each participant walks the gallery and reads all sketches
3. Optional: each participant places 2–3 dot stickers on the ideas they find most promising (this is a signal, not a binding vote—decisions belong to A2.5)

Step 4: Harvest (2 minutes)

1. Photograph all sheets
2. Assign unique IDs to each panel
3. Transcribe key ideas into the raw idea archive (title + brief description + sketch reference)

Quality Criteria

1. All participants complete ≥6 of 8 panels
2. ≥3 distinct solution archetypes per participant (not 8 variations on one theme)
3. Sketches are legible enough for gallery walk (annotations present where needed)
4. All sketches captured (photographed + transcribed)

Theoretical Foundation

Seminal references:

• : Codified Crazy 8s as a core element of the Google Ventures Design Sprint. The method draws on Osborn's deferred-judgement principle and adds extreme time-boxing and visual expression. Knapp demonstrated that the method consistently produces 15–25 distinct concept sketches from a team of 4–7 in under 15 minutes.

Contemporary references:

• : Emphasised visual thinking and rapid prototyping as superior to purely verbal ideation for solution concepts that involve user interactions, physical products, or interface design. Crazy 8s operationalises this principle at the earliest ideation stage.

Challenges and Solutions

Challenge 1: “I can't draw”

• Symptoms: Participants freeze or produce only text
• Solution: Demonstrate a 30-second example sketch before starting (boxes, arrows, stick figures, labels). Emphasise: “This is thinking, not art. If you can draw a rectangle and an arrow, you can do Crazy 8s.”

Challenge 2: Eight Variations, Not Eight Ideas

• Symptoms: All 8 panels show minor layout tweaks of the same concept
• Solution: Before starting, say: “Each panel must use a different mechanism to solve the problem. If panel 1 is a dashboard, panel 2 cannot be a different dashboard—it must be a fundamentally different approach.”

Relationship to Other Methods

Crazy 8s complements:

• Structured Brainstorming (the referenced method): Use brainstorming for verbal ideation, then Crazy 8s to force visual concreteness
• Brainwriting 6-3-5 (the referenced method): Brainwriting is the text-based equivalent; use when solutions are non-visual
• Affinity Mapping (the referenced method): Crazy 8s outputs feed clustering in A2.1 Step~3

Tools and Templates

• A4/A3 paper folded into 8 panels
• Thick marker pens (Sharpie or equivalent)
• Timer with audible minute markers
• Dot-vote stickers (optional)
• Camera / phone for documentation

• A. F. Osborn (1963). Applied Imagination: Principles and Procedures of Creative Problem-Solving. 3rd ed. Charles Scribner's Sons.
• J. Knapp, J. Zeratsky & B. Kowitz (2016). Sprint: How to Solve Big Problems and Test New Ideas in Just Five Days. Simon & Schuster.
• T. Brown (2009). Change by Design: How Design Thinking Transforms Organizations and Inspires Innovation. HarperBusiness.