The first act is the opening act, and it’s all about opening - opening people’s minds, opening up possibilities. The opening act is about getting the people in the room, the cards on the table, the information and ideas flowing. You think of the opening as a big bang, an explosion of items and opportunities.
The more ideas you can get out in the open, the more you will have to work with in the next stage.
Once you have the energy and the ideas flowing into the room, you need to do some exploration and experimentation. This is where the rubber hits the road, where you look for patterns and analogies, try to see old things in new ways, sift and sort thought the ideas, build and test things, and so on. You want to create the conditions that will allow unexpected, surprising and delightful things to emerge
In the final act you want to move toward conclusions - toward a decision, a actions and next steps. This is the time to assess ideas, to look at them with a critical and realistic eye. You can’t do everything or pursue every opportunity, which of them is the most promising?