Choosing your first use case

HYPE Boards is a tool you can use for basically any kind of ideation or innovation activity where you'd like to involve other people.

While this versatility is one of the core value promises of HYPE Boards, we realize that it can be difficult to focus on the essential when you're just starting off. Thus we recommend everyone to start off by focusing on a single use case first. There's a few reasons for doing this:

Whichever use case you end choosing, the most important thing to consider is that the use case should have a high level of strategic fit with your organizational goals. This ensures that the ideas will deliver real value for the organization and thus means that you'll get the required resources for implementing ideas. People are also much more likely to participate enthusiastically when their opinion can really affect the way the organization works in the future.
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But don't worry, it's easy to change your approach on-the-fly with HYPE Boards, so whichever use case you end up choosing, the action is not irreversible, it simply helps you by configuring the default settings of the board to be more appropriate for your case.
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You can also tackle multiple use cases simultaneously with HYPE Boards quite easily as each use case is linked to a single HYPE board.

Here's a brief overview of the most common use cases for HYPE Boards. For more information on each of them, please see Use Cases. If you'd like to see more practical examples, this article outlines 35 different ways you can use HYPE Boards to drive measurable business results for your organization.

A continuous process for gathering incremental improvement ideas from your employees
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This is a great use case to choose if you're looking to make lots of small improvements without too heavy of a decision making process, for example when refining your existing business processes or making minor improvements to existing products or services.
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A continuous process for collecting new ideas and turning those into innovations

This is a great use case to choose if you're looking for new innovations and business ideas from your employees or customers, or simply would like to build a thriving company culture around innovation.

A limited time campaign for gathering ideas related to a specific theme
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Choose this you’re looking for ideas and innovations related to a specific theme, be that a problem/challenge or an opportunity. It's a great choice if you don't need a continuous process but are simply looking to rally your company to solve a specific challenge, to improve a specific area of your business or tackle an exciting new opportunity.
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Engage your employees in the formulation or implementation of your new strategy
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Your employees are the heart of your company and working on a new strategy without engaging them can lead to a variety of challenges. Choose this use if you'd like to use the insights of your employees to form or implement your new strategy, or simply to ensure everyone in your organization is onboard and invested in the new strategy.

A public and continuous process for gathering ideas from all stakeholders
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Choose this if you're looking to engage a variety of external stakeholders in your innovation, be they partners or customers. This is a great way to gather out-of-the-box ideas and to build a deeper relationship with your stakeholders.

Also known as the Stage-Gate, this is a systematic process for creating new products, especially useful if significant upfront investment is required.
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A structured process like this can help make New Product Development (NPD) more repeatable and scalable. By identifying challenges and risks early on, the process can help focus time, effort, and resources on the most promising projects by killing the dead-end ones, and also reduce overall risk and costs associated with failed projects, which inevitably are a part of innovation.

The board consists of 6 Phases and their respective Gates:

Systematic process for validating your ideas, starting from the most critical assumption.
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Most ideas have potential, but none is perfect from the get-go. A systematic process for validating your ideas, starting from the most critical assumption, can be extremely helpful for refining and validating the ideas prior to committing significant time or resources to them.

The board focuses on three key areas: Customer Desirability, Technical Feasibility, and Business Viability.

Get the creative juices of your team flowing and generate ideas around a specific topic before, during, and after a remote, in-person or hybrid session.
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Every organization runs workshops and brainstorming sessions, but setting one up can actually be quite a bit of work, even for an experienced facilitator. This board template is designed to help make the process of setting one up a lot smoother: the board offers a proven process for running an effective workshop/brainstorming session, whether it be remote, in-person, or in a hybrid format, in a matter of minutes.
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The key is to have the participants do their homework and prepare for the session by submitting ideas in advance, then use the workshop to discuss and dive deeper by evaluating the merits of the ideas, as well as making decisions on how to move forward. The board can also be used to follow-up on progress made regarding the decisions.

An Agile Board is a visual and collaborative space used by teams to manage their work in a transparent, iterative, and highly flexible way. It helps structure workflows using Agile principles, allowing teams to break down tasks, track progress, and continuously deliver value.

Whether you're using Scrum, Kanban, or a hybrid approach, the Agile Board serves as your team’s single source of truth—making it easier to stay aligned, adapt to change, and keep work flowing efficiently.

An Agile Board is ideal when your team:

From product development and operations to marketing and customer support, the Agile Board brings structure and visibility to any fast-moving team.

The Jobs to be Done Board is a structured workspace for understanding customers’ underlying goals, needs, and motivations—so you can design products, services, and experiences that truly fit their lives.

Based on the Jobs to be Done framework, this board shifts the focus from what customers say they want to the jobs they’re trying to get done, the struggles they face, and the outcomes they value. By capturing these insights visually, your team can align on where to innovate and what to prioritize.

Use this board when your team wants to:

It’s ideal for innovation teams, product managers, UX researchers and designers exploring new solutions or refining existing offerings.

The Continuous Discovery Board is your team’s central hub for building the right solutions—those that solve real problems for real users. It supports a structured and iterative approach to discovery that helps teams stay customer-centered while making decisions grounded in evidence, not assumptions.

Unlike traditional project boards focused on delivery, the Discovery Board is where customer insights, problem framing, and opportunity mapping come together to guide what your team builds—and why.

Use a Discovery Board when your team is:

This board is ideal for product teams, researchers, designers, and innovation units working in fast-moving, customer-focused environments.

The Design Sprint Board is a focused workspace that guides your team through a structured, high-impact process—from complex challenge to tested solution in just a few days. This framework empowers cross-functional teams to rapidly align, ideate, prototype, and validate new ideas.

A Design Sprint Board is the right choice when your team needs to: