Ideation is the generation of ideas. Ideation is specifically the generation of actionable ideas, or ideas that can make a difference.
Read the Aurora Harley’s article: Ideation in Practice: How Effective UX Teams Generate Ideas (https://www.nngroup.com/articles/ideation-in-practice/).
Review her analysis of the topic, review her analytics and how they were applied to the topic, and finally review her use of visualization to support her topic.