How to use the Innovation challenge brief template

Start a board from it
Use this template opens a new Freero board with the Innovation challenge brief template on it (sign up free first). On a board you already have, open Templates in the toolbar and search for “Innovation challenge brief”.
Follow the instruction on the board
“Write the question so a newcomer understands it in one read. Name who decides, when, and what winners actually get to do.”
Fill in each part
- The question One open question people will answer.
- Why it matters The facts that make it worth solving.
- A good entry What should an idea include?
- Out of scope What ideas are we not looking for?
- Timeline Open, shortlist and decision dates.
- Judges Who decides, and on what?
- Rewards What do winners get?
Bring your team and your agents
Invite people to the board or share a link, and work on it together live. The timer is in the top bar, private mode and voting in the board menu, and Claude or ChatGPT can join through Freero’s MCP server.

Work on it with an AI agent

Connect an assistant once and it works on the board with you, with your permissions: by default it reads and proposes, and people decide.

You ask: “Fill in the Innovation challenge brief board from these notes.”
What happens It reads the board, then proposes sticky notes for it. Nothing changes until someone on the board accepts them.
You ask: “Group what we wrote into themes and list the actions.”
What happens It proposes clusters with a title each and task cards for the actions, labelled with its name and yours.

Starbursting
Question an idea from six sides: who, what, where, when, why and how, as a mind map.
Assumption busting
List what everyone takes for granted about a problem, flip each assumption, and see which flips open up new ideas.
Lotus blossom
Grow one central theme into eight directions, then grow each direction into its own ideas, so you go both wide and deep.
What-if questions
Ask bold “what if” questions about how things could be different, then sketch what each would mean and the first step to test it.
Idea scorecard
Score a long list of ideas on the same few criteria so the shortlist comes from the group’s judgement, not the loudest voice.
Problem reframing
Before solving, restate the problem in several ways, broader, narrower, flipped, from another angle, and pick the frame worth working on.