From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English(go) back to the drawing board(go) back to the drawing boardPLANif you go back to the drawing board, you start again with a completely new plan or idea, after the one you tried before has failed The current system just isn’t working – we need to go back to the drawing board and start afresh. → drawing board
Examples from the Corpus
(go) back to the drawing board• You have to discard the propeller engine and go back to the drawing board.• You also could go back to the drawing board with that budget, trying to reduce costs.• They must go back to the drawing board and review the whole of youth training.• Sometimes, you also have to go back to the drawing board.• The Cta episode has therefore sent the whole idea of direct dating of petroglyphs back to the drawing board.• Voters rejected the bridge expansion plan, so it's back to the drawing board for city engineers.• They want to see the road plan sent back to the drawing board.• So Superman, once the most recognized and revered hero in comic books, was sent back to the drawing board.• For San Jose, it was back to the drawing board. 