Nielsen Norman Group

World Leaders in Research-Based User Experience

The Diverge-and-Converge Technique for UX

Workshops
Summary: By first working independently on a problem, then converging to share
insights, teams can leverage the benefits of both work styles, leading to rapid data
analysis, diverse ideas, and high-quality designs.
By Therese Fessenden on December 15, 2019 Topics: Ideation, Research Methods

Are you an introvert who hates meetings and derives pleasure from thinking in solitude? Or
do you get excited when you can discuss ideas with others and work side by side with them
toward a common goal? Working alone and working with others have each their own
advantages and disadvantages. In this article, we define a collaborative technique that
combines the two in order to maximize the work quality and efficiency: diverge and converge.

Definition: The diverge-and-converge collaboration method has two stages: (1)

a diverge stage, during which team members work independently to produce
individual insights and (2) a converge stage, where they discuss the results of the
diverge phase as a group in order to decide on some collective output.

When team members diverge, they research, analyze, generate, or design independently,
without discussing thoughts or findings with others. When team members converge, they
share their findings, insights, ideas, or designs with one another.

How Diverge-and-Converge Works

The technique can be incorporated into any collaborative activity which involves consolidating
the input of multiple people into a single collective output. A facilitator should introduce the
diverge-and-converge method before or at the beginning of the meeting, to keep participants
on track.

Depending on the goal of the activity, the diverge part can happen before the workshop, with
participants working by themselves at their own pace, or during the workshop, with all
participants spending a dedicated period of time to do the individual work in parallel.

For example, if the goal is to speed up data collection for a large research study, several UX
researchers may run study sessions separately, using a shared research guide. After the data
has been gathered, team members will converge in a meeting to discuss research findings.