The Dreamer. The Realist. The Critic.

Walt Disney was a visionary, an accomplished businessman, and a creative mind that set the imagination free. And he did that not by letting every whim and fancy go wild, but by filtering ideas through a process to weed out the mediocre from the iconic.

His process utilized three stages. In each stage, his team would take on a specific role and approach the process of generating ideas from the vantage point of the Dreamer, the Realist, and the Critic.

To generate Ideas, a dreamer is allowed to provide ideas, big or small, weird, wild or charming, without any rules.  He does not have to worry about the details on 'HOW' or the costs of the idea.

Taking the free-wheeling imaginations, the realist evaluates the feasibility, practicality, and achievability of the ideas. He can also organize, simplify or clarify the idea at this stage.

The critic asks the tough questions and gives a strength test to the idea. He is adept at finding weaknesses and question the premises and assumptions.

The process of filtering an idea by dreamers, realists and critics weed out mediocre and bad ideas. The ones left are the golden ideas.

This process bridges the gap from imagination to reality.