Project Brainstorm is designed for early‑stage exploration: to surface motivations, tensions, and acceptance thresholds that shape real decisions.
At its core, Project Brainstorm lets you:
- understand who exists in a market
- learn how individuals reason about a topic
- observe how views hold up or shift in group settings
- synthesise learning across studies to support a business or strategic decision
The platform is built for iterative exploration and learning over time, not one‑shot answers.
How learning typically unfolds in Project Brainstorm
Most teams follow a progression anchored to a Decision To Support.
1. Start with a clear decision
Every study in Project Brainstorm exists to inform a Decision To Support.
This decision becomes the spine around which learning accumulates.
Examples:
- Whether to invest in a new product or concept
- Whether to pursue a specific customer segment
- Whether to change positioning, pricing, or go‑to‑market approach
As you run multiple studies that support the same decision, those studies are grouped into a lineage.
What is a lineage?
A lineage is a collection of studies that all support the same Decision To Support.
Lineages:
- preserve continuity across exploration
- make it clear why studies are related
- are the foundation for Synthetic Surveys (Synthesis)
Lineages emerge naturally when you run multiple studies tied to the same decision. In the Beta workflow, you explicitly choose whether to continue an existing an existing lineage or start a new one when setting up a study.
How studies fit into a lineage
2. Use Synthetic In-Depth Interviews (IDI) to explore reasoning
When starting a new lineage, we suggest users begin with a Synthetic IDI to understand:
- who exists in the market
- how individuals reason
- what motivations, hesitations, and trade‑offs matter
IDI studies are best for depth and nuance.
You are not looking for consensus here -- you are learning how the people there think.
Most teams run more than one IDI as they refine their framing and understanding.
3. Use Synthetic Focus Groups (FG) to stress-test views
Once you understand individual reasoning, Synthetic Focus Groups help you see
- which views holds up socially
- where opinions shift under peer influence
- where contradictions or group pressure appear
FGs still belong to the same lineage if they support the same decision.
This is often where teams reuse personas from earlier IDIs, adding social context to what you learned individually.
4. Use Synthetic Surveys (Synthesis) to compress learning
After running multiple IDIs and/or FGs within a lineage, you can run a Synthetic Survey (Synthesis).
Synthesis does not start fresh. It explicitly draws on the lineage of prior studies supporting the same decision. IDI and FG reports are inputs into Synthesis, not alternatives to it, so you generally run more IDIs and/or FGs before running Synthesis.
Synthesis helps you:
- surface stable vs tentative patterns
- understand how the market population as a whole appears to lean
- identify what would invalidate current conclusions
Synthesis is directional and interpretive, rather than predictive. You move to Synthesis when additional qualitative runs stop changing the shape of what you’re learning, not after a fixed number.
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How to run your first study (step-by-step)
Step 1: Start a new study
From the dashboard, go to My Studies and click New Research.
- Enter a Study Title
- Click Continue
You do not choose a study type at this stage.
Step 2: Choose a lineage
You enter the Focused Creation area, where the first step to consider is:
Is this a continuation or a new line of research?
You can:
- Continue an existing lineage
Reuse the same Business Problem and Decision To Support
- Start a new lineage
Define a new Business Problem and Decision To Support
This is the most important structural step. Lineages ensure that studies build on prior learning instead of fragmenting into isolated runs.
Step 3: Frame the problem and decision
In the Framing Panel, you'll define:
- Business Problem
What you don’t yet understand
- Decision This Study Will Support
The decision this research will inform
If you’re unsure how to phrase these:
- read the examples and tooltips, or
- ask Mark (our Market Intelligence Copilot) in the Problem Framing Helper to coach you
Save both fields. They remain editable until you start the study.
Step 4: Complete the Research Brief
Here you define:
- Market / Geography (the place or locale where the opportunity exists)
- Product or Concept
- Target Audience
With the Target Audience field, be broad and try not to over‑specify. For example, "middle-income families with school-age children" would be a good descriptor of a middle-class urban market.
You may optionally:
- upload grounding documents (eg, government data, credible reports)
- add optional context such as cultural sensitivities or adoption barriers
Important guidance:
Less is often better. Over‑specifying inputs can unintentionally introduce bias exploration.
Early studies work best when you stay open‑ended and iterate.
Step 5: Choose a study type (after framing)
Study type is chosen only after framing is complete.
Start with Synthetic IDI to understand the population:
- who exists in the market
- how individuals think and reason
- what drives motivations and hesitation
Run multiple IDIs to build a broader view of the population and refine your understanding.
Once you have a clearer picture, use Synthetic Focus Groups (FGs) to observe:
- how views change in a social setting
- which perceptions hold up among peers
- where group dynamics create tension or shift opinions
You can also run an FG with new personas if your current set does not fully capture the population. Then use those new personas to continue exploring through additional IDIs.
Over time, this creates a fuller picture of the population across both individual reasoning and group dynamics.
Synthetic Surveys (Synthesis) come later, when you want to understand how the whole population appears to respond by consolidating signals across the lineage.
Step 6: Using and reusing personas
Every study in Project Brainstorm is executed using synthetic personas – population-grounded representations of individuals used within studies.
Creating new personas
If you don’t reuse personas, Lisa (our Virtual Consultant) will generate new population-grounded synthetic personas for the study based on your Research Brief.
This is useful when you want to:
- explore a market broadly
- avoid anchoring on earlier assumptions
- see what new individuals and perspectives emerge
New personas support fresh exploration.
Reusing personas
You can also choose to reuse personas from your Persona Library.
This is useful when you want to:
- go deeper on a specific set of individuals
- compare how the same people reason across different methods (eg, IDI to Focus Group)
- test how earlier motivations hold up under new questions or social settings.
Personas reuse supports depth and continuity within a study or series of studies.
Both approaches are valid
There is no “right” choice, it depends on what you are trying to learn.
- New personas help you discover what exists in a market
- Reused personas help you understand how known perspectives evolve, interact, or break down
Importantly, personas do not define lineages. Lineages are defined by the Decision to Support, not by which personas you use. You can mix both approaches over time as your understanding grows.
Practical guidance
If you’re unsure:
- start with new personas in early IDIs
- reuse personas later when you want to probe, challenge, or stress-test what you’ve already learned.
Project Brainstorm is designed to support both paths and encourage iteration.
Step 7: Run the study and review output
When you start the study:
- framing anchors are locked
- the study executes
- outputs appear on screen and in a downloadable report
IDI and FG outputs include:
- transcripts
- themes and motivations
- tensions and contradictions
- signal‑strength labels (Strong / Indicative / Exploratory)
Study execution takes ~5-10 minutes. This is partly due to the Beta (not fully optimised yet), and because each study uses multiple AI models -- Mark, Lisa, and separate models for each persona. This multi-model approach increases variation across personas, producing more diverse and realistic perspectives than a single-model simulation.
Step 8: Iterate within the lineage
Use what you learn to:
- refine the Business Problem
- sharpen the Decision To Support
- run additional IDIs or FGs
- eventually run a Synthesis study to compress learning
Project Brainstorm is designed around this loop.
Final Guidance
Project Brainstorm is designed for exploration before commitment.
Use it to:
- understand a market before acting
- uncover tensions early
- build decision confidence over time
Start with a lineage, learn through iteration, and let the structure of the market reshape your assumptions.
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We’ll continue publishing additional guides and FAQs on lineages, synthesis, personas, and interpretation to help you get the most out of the platform. Use the platform to explore, iterate, and let the market population inform your decisions -- before committing to action.
Remember: Project Brainstorm is an experimental beta. It is designed to help you see the market more clearly, not to replace judgement or downstream validation.
If you’d like to learn more about Project Brainstorm or share feedback on the beta, you can reach us at contact@projectbrainstorm.xyz