In a nutshell

A playful way to shake up thinking by turning a problem on its head. Instead of asking, “How do we fix this?” ask, “How could we make it worse?” to arrive at creative insights and ideas.

Strangely, that’s where some of the best ideas hide.

Similar to Flip It which uses reversal to work out what to stop doing.

Set up

• As ever, you’ll need someone with a real challenge they want to address.
• Paper, pens, post-its or a whiteboard—anything to jot and share ideas.

Activity flow

Step 1: Warm up with something playful (5 mins)

Before tackling the real problem, loosen up with a few warms ups moving from verbal like ‘I need three things’ or ‘8 things’  to embodied ‘Creatures of the deep’ or ‘What’s the opposite of..?’

The aim is to laugh and get comfortable using your imagination, embracing mistakes and being a bit ridiculous.

Step 2: Name the real challenge (5–10 mins)

Ask the person who owns the problem (the Problem Owner) to describe what they’re trying to figure out.

Help them frame it as a simple question—something like:

• “How might we improve team morale?”

• “How might we get more people using this service?”

Use a technique such as Framestorming, Boundary setting or Root Causes to define your Problem As Understood.

Step 3: Flip it on its head (5 mins)

Now for the reversal.

Take the problem and turn it inside out. Instead of “How do we improve morale?” ask:

“How could we totally destroy morale?”

Make it extreme. Make it dramatic. The more ridiculous or uncomfortable, the better—if it stirs up energy and creative tension you’re heading down the right track.

Step 4: Go wild with ideas (15–20 mins)

Now brainstorm how to solve this backwards-framed problem.
By doing so you’ll generate ideas for how to ruin things. How to tank the service. How to frustrate everyone.

Rules for this part:

• No judgment.

• Nothing is too weird.

• Keep it flowing—quantity over quality.

• Build on each other’s ideas (turn average into awesome)

You’re not looking for answers yet—you’re just generating options.

If it’s not flowing too well create a chart on a wall that goes from boring to incendiary and place ideas on the chart. That will help people stetch beyond the dull and the obvious.

Step 5: Look for gold (20–25 mins)

Now start to pick out a few standout ideas from that backwards brainstorm. Ask:

• What has energy in it? Where don’t we dare to go? (Go there!)

• What’s the opposite of doing this? (Be open to a wide range of ‘opposites’)

• What’s hiding inside this bad idea that could become something good?

• If we explored another reverse idea what could it lead us to?

Use the Problem As Understood to guide you. You’re looking for ideas that are:

• Unexpected (novel)

• Useful

• Just the right kind of odd

You don’t need polished solutions—just fresh, promising directions.

Results

By the end, you’ll have:

• A clearer understanding of the challenge

• 1 or 2 novel and useful ideas the Problem Owner hadn’t considered

• A sense of energy and surprise from the unexpected route you took

• The way forward can emerge from any of these – it doesn’t really matter how

Things to flag up

• Take time to understand the problem before reversing it

• Make the reversal bold—mild tweaks won’t work

• Keep the energy playful, especially when it gets weird

• Watch for when laughter turns into insight—that’s the sweet spot

• Don’t force a “complete” idea— stay open to things with potential

Riffs & variations

• Use reversal in pairs and then join into groups

• If things feel flat, flip the problem a different way

• Look for parallels and metaphors to inspire you “If this went really wrong it would be like such and such…”