Crazy 8s for people who can't draw
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The first time you say "fold your sheet into eight and draw", half the room freezes. Crazy 8s comes from design sprints, and the word sketch scares people who are not designers. The point is eight different answers in eight minutes, not eight drawings. A box with three words and an arrow counts.
When to use it
Use Crazy 8s when the team has agreed on one problem and you need width fast, before anyone falls in love with the first answer. It belongs right after you have sharpened a How might we question and before any scoring. It is not a method for refining a concept; for that, use the theme variant below or move on to brainwriting.
How to run it
- Write the question on the wall. One How might we question, large enough to read from the back. If people cannot see it, the boxes drift off topic.
- Fold an A4 sheet into eight boxes. In half, in half again, and once more. Fold together; it takes thirty seconds and calms the room.
- Say what is allowed. Out loud: words, boxes, arrows and stick figures are all allowed, and nobody will judge the drawing. Say it before anyone picks up a pen.
- One minute per box, called out loud. Start a timer and say "next box" every minute. Not "if you are ready", just "next box". A half-empty box is fine.
- Circle the best two. After eight minutes everyone circles their own two strongest boxes. Thirty seconds, no discussion.
- Share, one minute per person. The author explains their two circled ideas. The others ask clarifying questions only ("what does the arrow mean?"), no opinions and no "we tried that".
- Stick the sheets on the wall. All of them, including the uncircled boxes. Uncircled boxes get picked up later more often than you think.
- Capture each circled idea as one line. Then dot vote or write them straight into the list you will score. A sheet of paper on a wall is not a backlog.
Why eight and why one minute
Speed beats judgement. With a minute per box there is no time to decide whether an idea is good enough to write down, so it gets written down. That is the whole trick.
The first three boxes are the obvious ideas, the ones everyone in the room already had. Boxes five to eight are where the different ones come from, because the obvious answers are used up. Box four is the empty moment where people stare at the paper. Say this to the room before you start: "Around box four it goes quiet. That is normal. Push through, the interesting ones come after."
Variants
- Crazy 8s on a theme. Instead of eight answers to the question, eight ways to do one idea: eight ways to onboard a new customer, for example. Useful when the direction is already chosen.
- Remote with paper and a phone. Everyone folds a sheet at home, you call the minutes on the video call, and afterwards each person photographs their sheet and drops it in the chat. Paper beats drawing with a mouse in a whiteboard tool.
- Text only. For teams who flatly refuse to draw: eight boxes, one sentence per box, same timing. You keep the speed and the eight-answers discipline.
Before the real round, do a 60-second warm-up where everyone draws a coffee cup. All the cups are bad, everyone laughs, and the fear of drawing is gone before it matters.
Never let people present all eight boxes. With ten people that round takes an hour, and the energy is dead by the fourth sheet. Two circled ideas per person, one minute, no exceptions.
Four mistakes that sink a Crazy 8s round
- Too much time per box. Ninety seconds out of sympathy, and the pressure disappears along with the width.
- A question that is too broad. "How might we improve the customer experience" gives eight boxes of fog. Sharpen it first; see How might we questions.
- The facilitator who draws beautifully and shows it first. Your example sets the standard. If it looks like a product illustration, half the room will not start. Draw badly on purpose.
- Sheets that go in the bin. The paper ends up in a folder nobody opens. Write each circled idea as one line while the author is still in the room, with their name next to it. Tools like IdeaHone capture it from the share round as it is spoken; a spreadsheet does it fine as well.
Capture every idea while people talk
IdeaHone listens in your session and turns what people say into idea cards, questions and decisions, live on a shared board.
What is the Crazy 8s method?
Crazy 8s is a fast ideation exercise from design sprints: each person folds a sheet into eight boxes and fills one box per minute with a different answer to the same question. Then everyone circles their best two and shares them in a short round.
Do you need to be able to draw for Crazy 8s?
No. A box with three words and an arrow is a valid answer, and a text-only variant works for teams who refuse to draw. The method is about eight different ideas in eight minutes, not about the quality of the sketches.
How long does a Crazy 8s session take?
About 25 to 30 minutes for a group of eight: eight minutes of sketching, one minute per person to share, and a few minutes to capture the ideas and vote.
