Brainstorming software
Brainstorming software for teams that need to make decisions
Most brainstorming software hands you an infinite canvas and wishes you luck. IdeaFlow is built around two structured session formats — Brainstorm Circle and Starbursting — so every brainstorm ends with a written decision instead of a screenshot nobody reads.
Brainstorm Sessions are on the Pro plan · €99/year, whole team included
Two formats, one purpose
Pick the session, run it, decide
One central question. Eight perspectives. Hearts to surface the favourites.
Brainstorm Circle places one question in the middle and arranges eight team perspectives around it. Members heart the cards that resonate. After fifteen minutes the popular ones are obvious.
- —Best for retros, planning kickoffs, hiring debriefs
- —Equal voice for every team member
- —Hearts surface consensus without a meeting
Six question lenses — Who, What, When, Where, Why, How.
Starbursting interrogates the idea from every angle. The team works each spoke until the proposal has been pressure-tested. The structure guarantees the obvious blind spot doesn't get skipped.
- —Best for launches, hires, big decisions
- —Generates questions, not just answers
- —Catches the blind spot before commit
Why structured
Infinite canvases are great for ideas, bad for decisions
Open-canvas brainstorming software is built for the divergent phase — generate as many sticky notes as you can. Two hours later you've got a wall of colour and nobody knows what was decided. IdeaFlow runs the divergent phase too, but it also runs the convergent one: every Brainstorm Session has a structure that forces the group to land somewhere.
That structure is the whole point. Without it, a brainstorming tool is just shared whiteboard. With it, you get a repeatable process — open the session, pick a template, run it, finish. The next meeting starts from the previous decision, not from the previous board.
Format 1
Brainstorm Circle: one question, eight perspectives
The Brainstorm Circle template places one central question in the middle of the canvas and arranges eight team perspectives around it. Each member writes one card and hearts the others that resonate. After fifteen minutes the loudest voice in the room hasn't dominated — every perspective is on the canvas, and the popular ones are obvious.
Use it for retros, hiring debriefs, product decisions, planning kickoffs — anywhere you want everyone's view in one place without the meeting going an hour over.
Format 2
Starbursting: interrogate the idea from every angle
Starbursting is the inverse of free ideation. Instead of generating answers, you generate questions — six spokes for Who, What, When, Where, Why, How. The team works each spoke until the idea has been examined from every angle. It's the fastest way to pressure-test a proposal before committing to it.
Use it before a launch, before a hire, before any decision big enough that you'd regret missing a question. The structure guarantees the obvious blind spot doesn't get skipped.
The outcome
Every session ends with a written decision
When you finish a session, IdeaFlow generates a clean PDF summary — the central question, the top-voted perspectives, the agreed next step. Drop it in a Notion page, attach it to a ticket, send it to the team that wasn't in the room. The output is the artifact, not the canvas itself.
See it for yourself — the live demo walks through a Brainstorm Circle without sign-up, or read the full features page for the rest of the product.
When to use what
How IdeaFlow fits next to the tools you already have
Run your first Brainstorm Circle in the demo.
No sign-up. See the circle layout, vote on cards, watch the session reach a decision.
Get started
Brainstorm Sessions are on the Pro plan.
€99/year, whole team included, no per-seat pricing. See full pricing. Start free first if you just want to try the idea voting side of the product.