This thing that Robin Rendle says product designers need to do is a thing I’ve always thought anyone and everyone should do, pretty much.

In the early stages, solving the problem isn’t important. In fact, the first round of design that you show anyone should be focused on setting the stage for a discussion. It’s about gathering all the ideas and giving enough space for weirder, better ideas. Early designs should not try so damn hard to solve the problem, instead they should define and push the scope of the project into a frightening new territory.

Admittedly, I’ve mostly thought about it sometimes when listening to writers talk about how this or that show or movie happened, and I cringe whenever I get the sense that for the original pitch they tried preemptively to imagine feedback and notes and incorporate them in from the get-go.

Thing is, in any creative process, the client is going to want to feel they have control and input. If you have an idea you consider a 10 but you pitch it as a 7 because you think that’s where the notes will push it anyway, you could end up with a 4, and then everybody loses.