Without user personas, its very difficult to align on a shared perspective of the people who will experience the solution. As well as traditional brainstorming, try out some of these other idea generation techniques:, Check out our ultimate 10-minute brainstorming technique, too.. Next, youll move onto the define phase. It is one of the hottest buzzwords of today, easily found in articles and in the news. Next, you need to create the optimal space for your workshop. Lets get started. 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. Because the. Take a user-centered approach and ask your participants for feedback. Take the time to be well prepared. Well here are our handpicked tips. Many make genuine efforts to be innovativethey spend on R&D, bring in creative designers, hire innovation consultants. Team building activities can prove to be the missing link that will help your group feel more connected and able to collaborate more effectively. 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). 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. What went well? Perhaps youre already applying it in your work or everyday life, too? The five phases of Design Thinking, together with a quick explanation of each: Empathise, define, ideate, prototype, and test. 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. Pay attention to the group dynamics and reorganize if necessary! Create a crossfunctional team of allies who can help you advertise the process and build buy-in for your recommendations. After 5 minutes, share results among the group. Well walk you through the key stages of the template and offer some tips to help you along the way. Consider the following list of sections as inspiration for what to include in your post-workshop documentation: When it comes to communicating complex ideas quickly, having a library of visualization techniques on hand is critical. Our second exercise is called the Ideas Vault, this exercise is designed to relieve our participants of any decision-overwhelm when it comes to choosing which ideas to take forward in our prototype phase. She has spent the last seven years working in tech startups, immersed in the world of UX and design thinking. Whether your workshop will be in-person, online, or a mix of both, heres what to consider when choosing your workshop location: While in-person is always best, powerful digital tools like Miro and Mural can help remote teams workshop together when apart. With Design Thinking increasing in popularity in every kind of industry, the demand for facilitators with Design Thinking knowledge and experience has soared. ! To introduce the process of Design Thinking using a real-world design challenge: How might we improve the user experience for LoveFoundry customers? First, lets explore the problem at the heart of this workshop design, which is baking a cake! The facilitator is there to guide the process of deriving and checking the group's ground rules. Do they need updating or even overhauling altogether?, Although the general challenge has already been identified, nows the time to get down to specifics. Whether its your first workshop or your fiftieth, this guide will help you and your team overcome ambiguity and create user-centered solutions. What ideation technique will the group be using today, and how does it work? As well as finding a solution to the problem at hand, the process nurtures a working environment that values collaboration and communication and that focuses on creating solutions that meet the customers needs. 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. However, youve established the purpose of your Design Thinking workshop: to generate ideas for how to improve an existing digital product. Are they realistic? Bring a vision to life and into the hands of your customers, wherever they may be. 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. Technical tangents and These are the people your solutions must serve, and they are a constant source of inspiration. How accurate are they? Well yes, you must: Okay, but then "how can I be all of this at once?" Its important that the group understand the mindset and that they can reflect on real-life scenarios they could apply Design Thinking to. 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. When preparing your workshop, insist that the list of participants include representatives of all the teams affected by the issue to be resolved. Why, or why not? What if I told you that Design Thinking really is a piece of cake? Activityadd functionality to mobile screens (15 minutes): Now participants will turn their sketches into low-fidelity paper prototypes by adding functionality. 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. This is extremely helpful when it comes to reviewing your workshop, and, if youre running your workshop with clients, photos also make for a great souvenir. It could be that you need to come up with a drastic strategy for regaining consumer trust after a PR disaster! But how do you choose the right activity, and where do you get started when trying to build deeper team bonds? This can be a brief presentation covering the following points: By now, youve set the scene and put everybody at ease. In the Ideate phase weve chosen two exercises, one expansive and one focused. Based on what they observed in the previous activity, theyll fill in each quadrant with hypothetical (or direct) quotes and observations. Select those that are appropriate to your group's needs. Common design thinking activities include user stories, user journey maps, sketching, storyboards and paper prototypes. Lastly in our workshop, we celebrate by selecting a final cake outcome. 2. CareerFoundry is an online school for people looking to switch to a rewarding career in tech. What is a meaningful problem statement? Reflection and discussion (5 minutes): As a group, discuss what youve learned from the ideation phase so far. Unlike a traditional presentation, the slides of a facilitation deck are designed to guide collaboration and generate discussion. So what next? If working with several personas, consider breaking out into smaller groups focused on one persona. I use examples of Personas, explaining that they could be based on one person, and therefore be very real, or if they use the data from several people, they can create a fictional character with whom they will empathize and keep in mind throughout the design journey. For example: How might we provide an easy, safe, online dating experience?. If you are new to the world of workshop facilitation, you can apply some Design Thinking principles to the process itself. In general, workshops open with divergent thinking activities (brainstorming) before switching to convergent ones (prioritizations). Unlike virtual workshop ground rules (in which one person is usually the lead), team meetings usually require everyone to operate as a peer. Plan to facilitate several short rounds of brainstorming and open discussion before a unifying statement can be arrived at. This is the time to ask the group to come together to write a detailed problem statement. user personas). Prompt: Draw as many objects as you can using a sheet of paper with 30 blank circles printed on it. So that you don't always find yourself having to be the time police who is tasked with interrupting the teams when time is up, designate a person responsible for keeping time within each team. This might also be balanced with our budget and our time. While there are many ways to describe the process, weve broken it down into three steps: Prepare, Facilitate and Document. Ready to run an unforgettable Design Thinking workshop? If your activity requires it, you can also designate a person in each team who will be responsible for formalizing the group's work on a computer. This role can be filled by an in-house facilitator or an external or freelance facilitator who seeks to guide team members towards a common objective via the Design Thinking process., There are pros and cons to both internal and external facilitation., While an internal facilitator benefits from knowledge of the product and company and has established relationships with the team, they might struggle with objectivity, find it hard to build trust with the team, and avoid asking pointed questions., An external facilitator, on the other hand, is likely to remain detached from internal power struggles and find it easier to remain uninfluenced by existing relationships with the team. Make a note of these answers so that your workshops continue to improve steadily over time., Heres a shortlist of what to keep in mind at all times while running your Design Thinking workshop!. They can use words or sketches. These visualizations not only help teams describe ideas, but also interpret data and make informed decisions. For your Design Thinking workshop, ask your participants to pair up and take it in turns to play the user. 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. 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. But if time catches up with you, sacrificing a few won't compromise the quality of the final work. 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 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. With your objectives in mind, you can begin the planning process. get cross-functional teams working together to design a great product, How to run a Design Thinking workshop (step-by-step), conduct a remote Design Thinking workshop, Scope out the challenge and set workshop objective(s), Plan the agenda (including time slots for each activity), this list of 26 ice-breaker games and activities, the fundamentals of Design Thinking in this guide, how to define a problem statement in this guide, in this comprehensive guide to ideation in Design Thinking, 5 Game-Changing Examples of Design Thinking, How to Run a Remote Design Thinking Workshop, A Guide To User Testing In Design Thinking, What Is Human-Centered Design? Define, Ideate), Select 1-2 activities to support each step (15 min 3 hr), High-level summary including objective and outcomes, Pre-workshop assignment (ex. If your workshop takes place over several days, take the time necessary at the end of each day to write down the big ideas of the day. Reflection and discussion (10 minutes): As a group, discuss what youve learned so far. As the facilitator, you then have to ask team members to list why these ideas are so bad. Often when the group creates their Personas, they may realize that they need more information, some saying, Oh, I dont know if I have asked the right questions, in which case, we as facilitators can demonstrate that they are able to return to the empathize stage, as Design Thinking doesnt have to be a linear process. sales, savings, market share), The Public (ex. A good workshop facilitator must know how to get the word out within the company aboutthe beneficial effects of Design Thinking on collaboration and on a customer-centric culture. The Statement of Opportunity expresses the topline project opportunity from the teams perspective. Now for the most crucial part: planning your workshop agenda. We then can use our gathered insights that analyze the effectiveness of our chosen prototypes and then refine the idea accordingly. 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. In a way, yes! Indeed, Design Thinking can be applied to all areas of business, and a Design Thinking workshop can therefore be useful for everyonefrom marketing, product, and sales, right through to the C-level. As a designer, you might hold a Design Thinking workshop with your direct team in order to tackle a tough design challenge youve been struggling with. Use some of the most effective tools and techniques to design your concepts. Whether theyre starting from scratch or upskilling, they have one thing in common: They go on to forge careers they love. Where did the insights come from? On average, spend three hours of preparation for each hour of workshop. the mobile screen) that would be needed for this step. Activitycreate mobile screens (15 minutes): For each step in the user journey, participants will sketch out the user interface (i.e. One of our favorite icebreaker activities was taught to us by our colleagues at Valtech Stockholm: In teams of 2, each participant must draw their teammate in one minute without looking at their sheet of paper or raising their pen. Or connect closer with users? 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. Did the team have any feedback for you as the facilitator? For example, a cupcake is designed to be eaten by one person, a low-cost treat that doesnt warrant a special occasion. Lets consider the benefits of a Design Thinking workshop in more detail. Youll want to stock up on white copy paper, colored paper, pencils, marker pens, Post-It notes of different colors, sticky tape, and whiteboards.. Workshops are about getting stuff done, and are often used as milestones to start things or make decisions. In the second part of the ideation phase, youll get your participants to compile a series of user actions into a timeline. Do I have to be a designer to study this, and have any prior background knowledge? another person asks. 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. If our Persona character was a strong supporter of local business, that may play a part in where the cake ingredients were sourced. As a facilitator, you could mention that this form of research could identify with our Empathize stage, as well as our Ideate stage. Once youve gathered all the information, compile it into a single document and share it with the extended team. Capitalize on business opportunity by developing a harmonized digital strategy and transforming your organization. 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. They have a simple, one-sentence format that can be quickly created and compared. A workshop is a great way to introduce Design Thinking methodology to a company, but it doesnt end there. Activitycreate an empathy map (10 minutes): Each participant divides their page into four quadrants: says, thinks, does, and feels. Depending on where the project stands within the Design Thinking process, workshops can be used to output anything from early strategic requirements to fully-functional prototypes. They will also be your workshop participants. This is also a good time for questions. We then create two teams, ensuring that the chosen Persona profiles are on opposite teams and are designed for one another. 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. Why? To conclude, I wanted to give you one last little tip as a bonus. Provide a few examples to help them get started. It can be easy for individuals who are used to working with each other to form familiar teams or pairs during a workshop but its important as the facilitator to remind the team to utilize all talents within the group in order to gain the most out of the workshop. Activitygroup the steps into phases (10 minutes): Participants will now group the steps from the last activity into phases, aiming for 3-7 phases in total. The purpose of a Design Thinking workshop is to get people thinking outside the box, so be sure to set up a space that invites creativity. A car needs a good driver who has set of driving know-how, do's and dont's of the traffic rules and good anticipation of the roads. Youll find that the participants better control their allotted time and are less frustrated when their time for reflection comes to an end. Below, Ive collected a few more tips you might find useful if you are using your own design or trying another approach entirely. What data was used to inform them? These five stages of design thinking form an effective process for problem-solving that is useful for any team wanting to create better solutions and products. While physical whiteboards are the most engaging, excellent digital solutions are now available. Remind the group to keep coming back to the Empathy part of the Design Thinking process and use empathy maps and user stories as practical ways to keep the user at the center of the session. A way in which this cake design process could be elaborated is in the context of creating the workshop alongside a schools Home Economics class, or other groups who regularly have access to kitchens and cooking equipment. Also, don't hesitate to delegate certain tasks to the participants. 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. The mobile screen ) that would be needed for this step hesitate to delegate certain to! In turns to play the user there to guide the process itself group, discuss what youve learned from teams... Already applying it in your work or everyday life, too each quadrant with hypothetical ( or direct ) and..., and how does it work demand for facilitators with Design Thinking workshop, insist that the of... Designed to be innovativethey spend on R & D, bring in creative,. 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