Straw man proposal

A straw-man proposal (alternatively straw-dog or straw-person) is a brainstormed simple draft proposal intended to generate discussion of its disadvantages and to spur the generation of new and better proposals. The term is considered American business jargon, but it is also encountered in engineering office culture.

Often, a straw man document will be prepared by one or two people prior to kicking off a larger project. In this way, the team can jump start their discussions with a document that is likely to contain many, but not all, of the key aspects to be discussed. As the document is revised, it may be given other edition names such as the more solid-sounding "stone-man", "iron-man", and so on.