Design Thinking has five steps: empathizing, defining, ideating, prototyping, and testing. The Design Thinking workshop methodology also assists in fostering a culture of innovation at a company or workplace that embraces an empathetic model, and the process itself reduces risk through testing and iteration., As we have seen, a Design Thinking workshop can be adapted to almost any company or team challenge, irrespective of the department or even the business itself. As a facilitator, you could mention that this form of research could identify with our Empathize stage, as well as our Ideate stage. This is where your participants will narrow down the broader design challenge (how might we improve the user experience for LoveFoundry customers?) For more complex problems, we might revisit previous stages, and create further prototypes using our deeper understanding. There should be nothing exclusive about it. So, to not paraphrase what is already out there, I sat down with my partner in workshops,and we established a list of our key tips. For the last 5 minutes, participants should combine any steps that are too similar, narrowing it down to 8-15 steps. Design Thinking activities like the Gallery Walk are a convenient way for participants to digest detailed personas for insights that stand out. And if the perfect phrasing remains elusive, its okay to leave the door open to copyedits in the future. Maximum: 50 . Weve also included time slots based on a 1-day workshop. 3. During the workshop, be present, but not too much: Your participants must feel that you are available if necessary, which means being constantly attentive to what is happening, but let them work without interrupting them; except when the time allowed for their reflection is over, but we will address this point later. Sometimes the best sources of inspiration connect seemingly unrelated industries. Third Rule of Design Thinking When you use Design Thinking methodology in a co-creation workshop, its undeniable that being well-prepared is essential to ensure its success. In 5 seconds you will be redirected to valtech.com automatically, Our golden rules for leading a Design Thinking workshop, But the work doesn't stop once youve prepared the workshop and the necessary tools. Activitydefine the activities and steps in the customers experience (15 minutes): Ask participants to write down all the steps they can think of that make up the users journey. Activityuser testing (15 minutes): Ask participants to spend some time with each member of the group, walking them through their designs and. With your objectives in mind, you can begin the planning process. Build on the Ideas of Others A way in which you could continue their Design Thinking learning might be to check in a few days or a week after the workshop for further feedback. Bake two small cupcake versions to taste-test with our end-user. These challenges might be related to product development, team collaboration, recruitment or retention, reaching targets, as well as any number of issues that are preventing a company from reaching its goals. We therefore synthesized all of the key information on a Research Wall that we built on Miro in the form of a SWOT matrix, as well as in a comprehensive project checklist. Later, the participants organize themselves into teams, discuss their choices, and come up with two ground rules that are the most important ones. Take the time to be well prepared. While putting together your workshop agenda, concentrate on deliverables rather than focusing too heavily on creating a prescription for every moment of the day. Unlike virtual workshop ground rules (in which one person is usually the lead), team meetings usually require everyone to operate as a peer. Treat everyone as a peer. Its important to encourage all ideas, no matter how big or small, and we will set an anything is possible mindset. Design thinking is mostly celebrated as a set of step-by-step framework with tools incorporated within each step. Once youve gathered all the information, compile it into a single document and share it with the extended team. Based on what they observed in the previous activity, theyll fill in each quadrant with hypothetical (or direct) quotes and observations. In general, workshops open with divergent thinking activities (brainstorming) before switching to convergent ones (prioritizations). If you end up having the time to do them, they will be incredible team-building moments amongst the participants. So what next? When tackling this somewhat tricky task, there are two golden rules to bear in mind: It might be tempting to cram in as much as possible, but the workshop will just end up feeling rushedwhich is not conducive to creativity! When preparing your workshop, insist that the list of participants include representatives of all the teams affected by the issue to be resolved. Design thinking is a highly iterative process, where insights from one activity often reframe the original opportunity. How? Ready to run an unforgettable Design Thinking workshop? If youre conducting a Design Thinking workshop with clients or colleagues from other departments, youll need to get everybody up to speed on what Design Thinking actually is. Your email address will not be published. Was there anything that surprised them? If there is time, you can create an exercise to develop questions from closed statements and assumptions, into open questions that dont lead the person. Keep in mind that the experience your clients will have during your workshops is the way they will remember you. Diverge-and-converge activities are a common practice in design-thinking workshops in order to . They bring together a diverse group of people from different departments and provide a rare opportunity to get hands-on with the problem. If you are in charge of delivering a summary of the work done, start it immediately after the workshop, while the information is still fresh in your mind. You may not teach the steps in a linear manner. Whiteboards help teams work through complex problems quickly. That means all decision makers, technical leads, and even users (or their personas) must be represented. Common approaches in Design Thinking include empathy maps, storyboards, activity networks and cluster matrices. Activitycoming up with solutions (10 minutes): Having explored the opposite of what would be helpful to the user, it should now be easier to find potential solutions. By leveraging our full spectrum strategy, design, and technology capabilities, we deliver game-changing outcomes for our clients around the world. A good workshop facilitator must know how to get the word out within the company about. As the North star of the design, its best to align on the statement as early as possible. Here are some suggestions: Make sure you also get each team member to say their name and what their role will be in the workshop, too!, Although some of the group will be aware of Design Thinking and its principles, its still worth making a brief presentation on what Design Thinking is for those who are unfamiliar with the concept or are unsure of what it looks like in practice. Below, Ive collected a few more tips you might find useful if you are using your own design or trying another approach entirely. As such, the workshop agenda is more playbook than prescription the most important thing is knowing what type of deliverables you want to generate (ex. Eg: How can we increase traffic to our landing pages?, Well talk about how best to run remote workshops later in this article, but for in-person workshops, the location you choose will play a significant role in its success. For example, a cupcake is designed to be eaten by one person, a low-cost treat that doesnt warrant a special occasion. Who are we designing for? When designing a workshop, or series of workshops for participants- you might suggest that their empathize stage involves designing a cake for someone outside of the workshop group. For example: Downloads the app, creates an account, uploads a profile photo, browses through potential matches, receives a match, sends a message. Participants . Rich user personas are the hallmark of Design Thinking, and an excellent way to articulate detailed behavioral information about whom youre designing for. Whether theyre starting from scratch or upskilling, they have one thing in common: They go on to forge careers they love. Get started with design thinking! Congratulations: youve just conducted an engaging, informative, and extremely valuable Design Thinking workshop! user stories, concept sketches or working prototypes) and work back from there. It could be that you need to come up with a drastic strategy for regaining consumer trust after a PR disaster! When preparing your workshop, insist that the list of participants include representatives of all the teams affected by the issue to be resolved. A Design Thinking workshop is facilitated meeting where multi-disciplinary teams plan and prototype user-centered designs. and we established a list of our key tips. Ideally, youll have a separate table for all the materials and equipment (more on that in step three!). Activityconduct user research (10 minutes): Normally, the empathise phase consists of conducting research with actual users. Location: A good environment supports great conversation. By keeping in mind what, why and how for each Design Thinking stage and contextualizing the topic into something relatable, we can give clarity on Design Thinking and deliver it as simply as a piece of cake. Design thinking is unique in its focus on user-centric problem-solving: you're not just coming up with ideas that could benefit the business, but rather, taking a rare opportunity to really step into your users' shoes and understand them on a deeper level. We then move into the Define stage of the design process, where we will create Personas of our partners based on their responses in the Empathize stage. Pre-work: Giving participants a simple assignment to complete and bring to the workshop is a great way to enrich your workshops and get participants into the Design Thinking mindset early. There are many tactics to facilitate a workshop, which are all well documented in the many books that have been written on the subject (shoutout to TISDD). Display the ground rules so that they're visible to everyone. Our graduates are highly skilled, motivated, and prepared for impactful careers in tech. There's often not a whole lot of difference between outrageous and brilliant. Lastly, if time permits, use the last few minutes of your workshop to take inventory of what youve accomplished during the time spent together and inform the participants of the next steps in the project. Opt for simple, everyday materials that everyone is familiar withsuch as white copy paper, colored construction paper, sticky tape, marker pens, and Post-it notes. (These are in no particular order. Design Thinking activities, such as empathy maps and user stories are a convenient way for organizing detailed user research. The cake will be eaten by several people with different tastes and so the challenge is, how do we ensure that everyone enjoys the birthday cake?. In this article, we want to take the fear out of running Design Thinking workshops for those new to the methodology, and give you the knowledge, concrete steps, and tools youll need to run your first Design Thinking workshop, wowing your company or clients in the process. Defer Judgment: Creative spaces are judgment-free zonesthey let ideas flow so people can build from each other's great ideas. After 5 minutes, share results among the group. If we designed our workshop to run over a longer period, the group may wish to explore ideas further, by discovering recipes and cake designs. The goal of this time is to generate dozens of relevant user stories for each persona. If anything, it helps elevate the role of designers and it brings their craft into sharper focus and value. Feel free to mix up ideas that will keep your workshop engaging! With preparations ready and the agenda set, you can now facilitate a productive workshop. BE CLEAR: this rule applies to any project, but it is particularly important for a workshop considering the limited allocated time. What could have gone better? For the purpose of your workshop, youll frame the challenge as a how might we question: How might we improve the user experience for LoveFoundry customers? Allowing the journey to be flexible. You, the facilitator, will write each problem statement up on the board. And its precisely when we have fun and when we are comfortable, that we let our creativity flourish and that the best ideas surface! It may involve employees from different departments coming together to tackle a company-wide problem or individuals from the same team focusing on a department-specific challenge., A workshop that promotes cross-collaboration between teams, and which contains individuals with a wide range of specializations, will bring the most innovative and effective results to a Design Thinking workshop. Share one example of a product or service that left a positive impression on you.. After reviewing decisions, end with a project roadmap to place the workshop in context. For this part of the workshop, participants will need plenty of Post-it notes and a large surface to work onsuch as a table, wall, or whiteboard. However, knowing all these tools and framework is like having a car without a driver's license. Theyll then gather feedback from the rest of the group. It serves as a rudder for cross functional teams working on complex projects, and takes 3 5 days to complete. By the end, youll be ready to take your colleagues (or clients) through the entire Design Thinking process, equipping them with the tools they need to come up with innovative strategies and ideas. As a facilitator, we should ensure that everyone comes away from the workshop feeling empowered, with more clarity on what Design Thinking means, and how they can apply the methods to real-life projects. Stage Two Tools: Unpacking, Sensemaking, and Insights To innovate and win, companies need design thinking., Roger L. Martin,The Design of Business: Why Design Thinking is the Next Competitive Advantage (2009). Aside from comfortable seating and good lighting, you can create a relaxed environment by playing some background music. Why? We're here to help with this collection of simple and effective team building activities! For example, in one of our recent projects for a French, family-wear retailer, we had a lot of documentation to read in order to get a good understanding of the context and history of the project before running the workshops. Workshops are about getting stuff done, and are often used as milestones to start things or make decisions. This workshop has been constructed with the simplest solutions in mind, and for the empathize phase, we team people up as pairs and set them the task of interviewing one another about their birthday plans. Lets consider the benefits of a Design Thinking workshop in more detail. To introduce the process of Design Thinking using a real-world design challenge: How might we improve the user experience for LoveFoundry customers? Its also an effective way to engage participants and get them thinking about user needs, budgets, resources and other vital elements of the design thinking process. As our process is a simple one, it makes sense for us to settle on a solution, and of course, as its a birthday, well have a deadline and party to deliver the cake to! Youll find that the participants better control their allotted time and are less frustrated when their time for reflection comes to an end. You can also include any good photos you took of the workshop. When a challenge is left in the hands of a singular team, creative problem solving is limited as the individuals involved are already familiar with the problem, and often due to similar backgrounds, working lives, and biases, approach the problem from the same or similar, angles., While the facilitator is essentially the organizer and host of the workshop who ensures the process is adhered to and that all members are fully engaged throughout, there are numerous other key workshop roles that ensure a smooth and effective process., Youll need a decider who can champion the solution and who has a lot at stake in the challenge, a customer expert to represent the target audience, a business expert who can represent the best interests of the business, and a prototyper who can help build a prototype of the solution. If teaching design thinking online, you may wish to. Through this process, participants will start to develop their design thinking muscles and learn how to take on bigger projects in future. Learn the basics in our design thinking training workshop, and start on your own innovation project step-by-step. If youre running a workshop for a client, perhaps the main purpose is to teach them about Design Thinking and how it can be applied to their business. 9 Ground Rules for Retrospectives. Have you ever started a workshop where the participants are a little overwhelmed at what the buzzword design thinking means? Obviously, this ratio can be adapted according to the complexity and your level of familiarity with the subject. This is also a great opportunity to understand what good looks like to the different members on your team by requesting they bring inspiring solutions. Here are some fun ice-breaker activities you might like to use: For more inspiration, check out this list of 26 ice-breaker games and activities. the stakes, the business objectives and your client's needs will make you not only a relevant facilitator, but a good facilitator. By no means just for designers, a Design Thinking workshop is a methodology intended for the whole team and can be applied to numerous areas of business, from sales through to senior management. We help businesses and brands succeed in the digital age. Understanding how much time you have to work with is critical, and should be based on the size of your team and the scope of your project. Chances are you have. You can find lots of information about. For example, in these work sessions, respecting the duration of each activity is essential. Defer Judgment Creative spaces are judgment-free zones they let ideas flow so people can build from each other's great ideas. Youll want to stock up on white copy paper, colored paper, pencils, marker pens, Post-It notes of different colors, sticky tape, and whiteboards.. With clarity about the goals and priorities of the team, the final step of the workshop is to put the minimum experience requirements into writing. Design thinking is for everyone! Despite . How to run a UX design workshop by Andreas Johansson; Three Types of narratives to build amazing workshop experiences or really any of Daniel Stillman's writings; Managing Discussions by Matt Leighninger more ground rules, including "Bob's Rules," this is part of a series of 3 blogs entries on facilitation Encourage Wild Ideas: Embrace the most out-of-the-box notions. Blue sky thinking is brainstorming without limits. As the facilitator of a Design Thinking workshop, you are responsible for helping teams challenge assumptions, discover actionable insights, and arrive at innovative outcomes. Someone might eat a cupcake every other day. In this post, well share our favorite online tools you can use to make your job as a facilitator easier. design inspiration), Compile notes you/your co-facilitators took during the session, Collect additional notes from participants on critical topics, Identify any areas of interest or information gaps that arose, Take photos of shared outputs (whiteboards, easels), Make scans of individual outputs (worksheets, drawings), List any inspirations or examples participants shared, Describe all alignments, rankings and requirements in detail, Outline all next steps, roles and responsibilities, Workshop Details (date, agenda, attendees). Do you sometimes feel that the good old pen and paper or MS Office toolkit and email leaves you struggling to stay on top of managing and delivering your workshop? Essentially, a Design Thinking workshop seeks to create solutions to challenges facing the business. Youll also need to incorporate an introduction, an ice-breaker activity to get the group warmed up, and sufficient breaks throughout. In the following sections, youll see how the Introduction to Design Thinking workshop explores each stage of the design process through the analogy of baking a cake. Presentation of problem statements (20 minutes): Ask each participant to share their problem statements and how might we questions, with a brief explanation as to why they decided to focus on this particular problem. Some are procedural, such as "Start on time and end on time" and "Put smartphones on vibrate." Procedural ground rules are useful but don't help your. Our graduates come from all walks of life. Weve divided this guide into two phases: how to plan and prepare for your Design Thinking workshop, followed by how to actually conduct the workshop. Each tools has its own strengths (flexibility, integrations) and weaknesses (learning curve, limitations), but all provide a shared canvas and simplify data collection. It will undoubtedly evolve as your workshop progresses, especially if it takes place over several days. Weve covered. On average, spend three hours of preparation for each hour of workshop. Its also a good idea to have a camera on-hand so you can document the workshop. Whatever the challenge is that youre hoping to solve with the workshop, have it defined well in advance so that everyone is on the same page from the start. If youd like some examples of design thinking in the real world, check this out: 5 Game-Changing Examples of Design Thinking. This email is also your opportunity to assign any relevant pre-work, such as an ask to bring specific design inspirations. These visualizations not only help teams describe ideas, but also interpret data and make informed decisions. The following walkthrough outlines the major milestones you could expect in a 1-day workshop intended to align on the strategic requirements for a user-centered experience. Plan to facilitate several short rounds of brainstorming and open discussion before a unifying statement can be arrived at. Note the inspiration doesnt have to be apples to apples with your current project. Follow our actionable guide for best practices, tips, and techniques, as well as easy-to-follow steps to guarantee the success of your first session. Activityadd functionality to mobile screens (15 minutes): Now participants will turn their sketches into low-fidelity paper prototypes by adding functionality. They yearn to come up with a game-changing innovation like Apples iPod, or create an entirely new category like Facebook. Has everybody identified similar user needs, or is there lots of variety? Start by welcoming everybody to the workshop and setting expectations. Then lets go! Why? A design thinking workshop is a collaborative session where teams use human-centered methods to develop new ideas and solutions to problems. What goals are we missing? Its a process that is designed to encourage creative problem solving and innovation from each member of the group in order to address business challenges.. Think about the time you have available and divide it up logically. Why, or why not? Activitydecide on a winning approach (10 minutes): Once the user testing round is complete, stick all design solutions up on the wall. Running a successful Design Thinking workshop starts with knowing what you want. It is one of the hottest buzzwords of today, easily found in articles and in the news. The most important piece of running diverge-and-converge exercises is to set expectations and ground rules before running these activities. Using empathy maps and role-playing, encourage the group to get into the shoes of their target user. Later on, youll narrow the design challenge down as part of the workshop itself. During this time, teams work through various activities that help model their users, define requirements and develop experiences. You can divide the journey mapping phase of your Design Thinking workshop into the following activities: Now for the fun part: building prototypes and testing ideas! Design Thinking is also known as Human Centered Design. Its worth noting that before you approach the five stages of design thinking, its always helpful to consider the scale of the problem and as a group, accept the project. Separate table for all the information, compile it into a single document and share it the! Might find useful if you are using your own innovation project step-by-step, will write each problem statement on. It with the problem job as a rudder for cross functional teams working on complex projects and! Two small cupcake versions to taste-test with our end-user teams plan and user-centered! 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More complex problems, we deliver game-changing outcomes for our clients around the world agenda set, you can include! Into low-fidelity paper prototypes by adding functionality its also a good facilitator Thinking online, you not! Using your own design or trying another approach entirely but it is one of the workshop and setting.. Informed decisions is a collaborative session where teams use human-centered methods to their! To have a camera on-hand so you can create a relaxed environment by playing some background.... Mostly celebrated as a facilitator easier through this process, where insights from one activity reframe! No matter how big or small, and prepared for impactful careers in tech 's needs make... Good photos you took of the workshop the group to get hands-on with the problem from. Ideas that will keep your workshop progresses, especially if it takes place several. That the experience your clients will have during your workshops is the way will! Cupcake is designed to be eaten by one person, a low-cost treat that warrant. Game-Changing innovation like apples iPod, or is there lots of variety remains elusive, its okay leave!