For fifteen minutes people then brainstorm supporting statements that would make this provocation true, explain how it works, and suggest what impact it has on community life. Some of the explanations may contradict each other. If so, participants may arrange their list into groups of ideas and concepts that are internally consistent. These groups are, in essence, the foundation of possible scenarios of alternative futures for the community. This exercise forces thinking out of accustomed tracks and gives the facilitators an opportunity to reward such risky thinking.
Participants first identify target assumptions.
To generate transformations or distortions that help open a window to a possible future, participants first choose something in the present as a focus, say houseplants. De Bono suggests that nouns make better random word provocations than other types of verbs, so assume the randomly chosen noun is chorale . In the future within this story, bioengineering has produced orchids that sing, and can be trained to sing chorale works en masse . The provocation of this unlikely pairing distorts an ordinary piece of the present, houseplants, into an alien, if beautiful, artifact from a possible future. Other exercises featuring lateral thinking with a futures focus are possible.