Youll want to stock up on white copy paper, colored paper, pencils, marker pens, Post-It notes of different colors, sticky tape, and whiteboards.. While originally being a way of guiding design work, it has been adopted by a wide array of professionals. 14 Ground Rules for Workshops. Are we designing how we think?, one person asks. 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. Well here are our handpicked, Whether it is an internal or external client, its essential to know the project's business context. Discuss the results of preparatory UX research, technical audits, and other data gathered in preparation. Sometimes the best sources of inspiration connect seemingly unrelated industries. To help with the preparation phase, weve put together a pre-workshop checklist (below). The level of detail you decide to document your workshop with should be based on the scale of your project short Design Thinking sessions with a core team dont require the same level of scrutiny as larger projects with extended teams who meet infrequently. In this section, well explore your Design Thinking workshop agenda in more detail. Their process could move at a slower pace over a semester, linking baking with Design Thinking and they might create small cupcake prototypes as groups. Take the time to be well prepared. However, knowing all these tools and framework is like having a car without a driver's license. Did the team have any feedback for you as the facilitator? Although its quite possible to lead a solo workshop, we strongly recommend that you be two people (or a few more, depending on the size of the group and the duration of the workshop). The facilitator is there to guide the process of deriving and checking the group's ground rules. Youll find a complete workshop template alongside tips to help you engage a group new to design thinking. Purpose . What could have gone better? CareerFoundry is an online school for people looking to switch to a rewarding career in tech. Provide a few examples to help them get started. Your email address will not be published. When preparing your workshop, insist that the list of participants include representatives of all the teams affected by the issue to be resolved. Also, don't hesitate to delegate certain tasks to the participants. Lastly in our workshop, we celebrate by selecting a final cake outcome. Ready to run an unforgettable Design Thinking workshop? Technical tangents and These are the people your solutions must serve, and they are a constant source of inspiration. Unlike a traditional presentation, the slides of a facilitation deck are designed to guide collaboration and generate discussion. It is relatively affordable, perhaps a mid-range cost if its for a milestone birthday, or a low-cost supermarket purchase for a low-key, informal celebration. Rich user personas are the hallmark of Design Thinking, and an excellent way to articulate detailed behavioral information about whom youre designing for. The first is a rapid-fire ideas generation session, it can be a very energetic and fast-paced assignment. Theyll provide feedback, support, and advice as you build your new career. Design Thinking workshops should be dynamic and interactive, so its important that participants have plenty of roomespecially when it comes to the prototyping stage. Join the 100,000+ facilitators using SessionLab. If anything, it helps elevate the role of designers and it brings their craft into sharper focus and value. After sharing the design context, invite participants to challenge and discuss the existing user personas. 1 day, 9:00 AM - 5:00 PM) Add time for introductions, lunch and breaks (15 to 60 min) Identify Design Thinking steps for each block (ex. Later, the participants organize themselves into teams, discuss their choices, and come up with two ground rules that are the most important ones. Has everybody identified similar user needs, or is there lots of variety? 1. Become a qualified UX designer in just 5-10 monthscomplete with a job guarantee. If you only do one thing, be over-prepared! Who you are (if youre conducting a workshop with a client). Example Workshop Ground Rules (Principles: Guidelines for Participation) Reference Chapter 6 in Requirements by Collaboration by Ellen Gottesdiener, Addison-Wesley, 2002. 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 can use words or sketches. Now for the most crucial part: planning your workshop agenda. If our Persona character was a strong supporter of local business, that may play a part in where the cake ingredients were sourced. Like any design project, be sure to continuously iterate and improve upon your Design Thinking workshop. Does your team need to discover new opportunities? Design thinking is a structured and collaborative way for humans to better serve other humans. 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. When introducing design thinking to beginners, it can be helpful to start with a simple, small-scale problem. A Design Thinking workshop seeks to overcome these challenges through a defined process that is designed to improve the problem-solving skills of the team, facilitate innovation, allocate time and space for significant collaboration between team members, build empathy, identify opportunities, define requirements, and develop ideas. Identify your skills, refine your portfolio, and attract the right employers. Your slides should directly reflect your workshop agenda. 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. That means all decision makers, technical leads, and even users (or their personas) must be represented. We finish our Define process, by presenting our personas to the group, and together voting on two personas we will choose to design cakes for. No, the great thing about design thinking is its accessibility! We have already mentioned that the people eating the cake would be called our end users. With preparations ready and the agenda set, you can now facilitate a productive workshop. Based on the five phases of Design Thinking, a Design Thinking workshop focuses on: Design Thinking workshops are all about collaboration and problem-solving. You can learn about different ideation techniques in this comprehensive guide to ideation in Design Thinking. If you end up having the time to do them, they will be incredible team-building moments amongst the participants. Later on, youll narrow the design challenge down as part of the workshop itself. Take a user-centered approach and ask your participants for feedback. In the Ideate phase weve chosen two exercises, one expansive and one focused. We can then establish a variety of methods in how we might Empathize with our users: For our cake design, these insights could help us discover our users flavor preferences, any hobbies that might relate to the visual design of the cake; and who else might be eating the cake at the party. Common Design Thinking workshop objectives include: Note: Expect to devote 1/2 day for each additional workshop objective. In this section of the workshop, participants will turn the steps from their user journey maps into digital screens for an app. the stakes, the business objectives and your client's needs will make you not only a relevant facilitator, but a good facilitator. To ensure your remote Design Thinking workshop runs as smoothly as possible, its important to keep in mind the following best practices., We hope our guide to running a Design Thinking workshop has answered all your burning questions about mastering this process and has taken the fear out of running your first one. Bring a vision to life and into the hands of your customers, wherever they may be. Think about the time you have available and divide it up logically. There should be nothing exclusive about it. Our graduates come from all walks of life. This month, were offering 100 partial scholarships worth up to $1,385 off our career-change programs To secure a spot, book your application call today! For example: A busy, middle-aged professional needs an easy way of meeting like-minded people in the local area. As well as traditional brainstorming, try out some of these other idea generation techniques:, Check out our ultimate 10-minute brainstorming technique, too.. 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. Whether theyre starting from scratch or upskilling, they have one thing in common: They go on to forge careers they love. Before you prepare the agenda, consider the high-level objectives. A quick recap improves long-term memory and provides a cohesive starting point for future workshops and project onboarding. Part of the workshop will be dedicated to building low-fidelity prototypes, for which youll need a good selection of materials. Lets consider the benefits of a Design Thinking workshop in more detail. 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. This statement, everyone likes chocolate, could be identified as a common assumption, and as a facilitator, you could see this as an opportunity to demonstrate that by assuming, we arent empathizing with our end-user. What ideation technique will the group be using today, and how does it work? 9 Ground Rules for Mediation. We're here to help with this collection of simple and effective team building activities! While you can expect a lot of discussion here, preparing an initial list of key performance indicators is a helpful starting point. 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! At the moment, this is a rather broad question. 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. Display the ground rules so that they're visible to everyone. . Create a crossfunctional team of allies who can help you advertise the process and build buy-in for your recommendations. You may not teach the steps in a linear manner. By using methods of empathizing to discover more information, we can get more context to our problem, and start to understand the wants and needs we hope to meet with our end product. Its important that the group understand the mindset and that they can reflect on real-life scenarios they could apply Design Thinking to. 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. Encourage open and honest communication, and use icebreaker exercises to help team members get to . Understanding your end users needs is the first step towards innovationand thats the first message youll deliver in your Design Thinking workshop. Our career-change programs are designed to take you from beginner to pro in your tech careerwith personalized support every step of the way. 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. Design Thinking is a human-centered approach to problem-solving. However, youve established the purpose of your Design Thinking workshop: to generate ideas for how to improve an existing digital product. 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. Designed for a very special occasion, the cake will often be custom-made. Activityadd functionality to mobile screens (15 minutes): Now participants will turn their sketches into low-fidelity paper prototypes by adding functionality. If you plan to use this workshop agenda, do you see it as a stand-alone learning, or as a starting point for further exploration? 10 Ground Rules . What did the team learn? Each tools has its own strengths (flexibility, integrations) and weaknesses (learning curve, limitations), but all provide a shared canvas and simplify data collection. This might be a good time to share some interesting statsfor example: teams that are applying IBMs Design Thinking practices have, A real-world Design Thinking case study, such as, Presentation (10 minutes): What is empathy? 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. Theyll then gather feedback from the rest of the group. Activitysharing ideas and getting feedback (10 minutes): Ask participants to pair up and share their ideas. Using empathy maps and role-playing, encourage the group to get into the shoes of their target user. In this module, we will consider a range of tools to help design thinkers understand problems: surveys, statistics, interviews, five whys and so whats, user roleplays, analogous empathy, empathy maps, customer journeys, and value chain analysis. Presentation (5 minutes): What is ideation? How accurate are they? 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. Do I have to be a designer to study this, and have any prior background knowledge? another person asks. Your agenda is one thing, but behind the agenda, there is a human beingyouwho must show emotional intelligence to be able, for example, to reorganize teams to better balance the different personality profiles, or even to identify a silenced participant to give them the floor. Dynamic groups who are used to problem-solving may come up with an idea straight away, and decide that they are definitely going to run with that as their solution. 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. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Refresh the page, check Medium 's site status, or find something interesting to read. 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. However, if youre new to the practice, getting to grips with everything you need to know, not to mention running your first Design Thinking workshop, can be nothing short of terrifying.. We help businesses and brands succeed in the digital age. Perhaps youre already applying it in your work or everyday life, too? Participants should come away with an understanding of how Design Thinking can be used in the real world, so explain what would usually happen nextturning paper prototypes into wireframes and, eventually, clickable prototypes to be tested on real users, for example. That way, if there is an opportunity to develop and deepen the process, you might create a series of workshops that aim to tackle different issues and projects. Workshops can deliver on one or more of these objectives, depending on how long they run (and how well you prepare). A Design Thinking workshop is a collaborative session that is focused on the five phases of Design Thinking. Using Post-it notes, theyll describe the functionality of each button; for example adds item to basket. Help participants unpack technical problems and appreciate the current user exprience, constraints and supporting systems. Bake two small cupcake versions to taste-test with our end-user. Someone might say, Lets bake a chocolate sponge cake, everyone likes chocolate, and a few other people nod and murmur in agreement. Together, these steps capture the breadth of content and considerations involved in running an effective workshop. Duis cursus. 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 the final stage of the Design Thinking process, we are capturing honest responses and feedback, by inviting our end-user to a glimpse into what the final outcome might look like. If youre running a workshop for a client, you might print display advertising campaigns from three of their biggest competitors, for example. 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. A user journey map is a visual representation of the process that a user goes through in order to accomplish a specific goal. When design thinking emerged in the '90s and '00s, workplaces were made up of cubicles and closed doors, and the term "user experience" had only just been coined at Apple. Important workshop ground rules require that everyone is engaged and on the same page. And we came to the following conclusion: Being a good workshop facilitator is like being made out of bamboo. Have you ever started a workshop where the participants are a little overwhelmed at what the buzzword design thinking means? Another simple yet powerful touch is to position some thought-provoking artifacts around the room. For this example, well use the worst possible idea technique followed by a simple brainstorm. Feel free to mix up ideas that will keep your workshop engaging! Most workshops last 1-2 days. There's often not a whole lot of difference between outrageous and brilliant. As a participant in a Design Thinking workshop, you are responsible for arriving in the right design thinking mindset. How will we measure success? A definition of what Design Thinking is. A birthday cake is designed and baked for several people. In our presentation at the beginning of the workshop, we outline some ways in which we might prototype our cake; As we are going for the simplest options in our workshop, we have suggested that the teams draw visual representations, adding possible recipe ingredients and flavors which they will then present to the end-user for testing. Because the. Safety is also an important factor., Activityreframe the problem as a how might we question (10 minutes): Now, participants will turn the users needs into a how might we question. With your objectives in mind, you can begin the planning process. Building a highly effective team takes effort, consideration,, Have you heard of Design Thinking? Many make genuine efforts to be innovativethey spend on R&D, bring in creative designers, hire innovation consultants. The define phase of your Design Thinking workshop might look something like this: The third phase in the Design Thinking process consists of ideationcoming up with ideas and potential solutions to solve the users problem. Next, youll move onto the define phase. Continuing with the example of LoveFoundry, our imaginary online dating service, lets consider how you might construct the empathise phase. 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? Why? Its very useful for participants to understand exactly what is meant by a prototype, and that it is not a near-finished product. To conclude, I wanted to give you one last little tip as a bonus. We back our programs with a job guarantee: Follow our career advice, and youll land a job within 6 months of graduation, or youll get your money back. 9 Ground Rules for Retrospectives. In our design thinking for beginners guide, we explore how you can introduce design thinking by asking a group to solve the simple challenge of baking a cake. Once youve gathered all the information, compile it into a single document and share it with the extended team. 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. 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. Note the inspiration doesnt have to be apples to apples with your current project. There might be one person sourcing the ingredients, another baking the cake and another delivering it to our Persona. Design Thinking looks at the customer's perspective from the start to the end of an experience. 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! We are designing our approach to creative thinking by going through a proven process in a mindful and self-reflexive way in order to find better solutions. You can find lots of information about. Limit the number of ground rules to 12. Share one example of a product or service that left a positive impression on you.. ! 3. In the introduction, its very useful to frame the Design Thinking process as a. 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. (These are in no particular order. 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. As the facilitator, you then have to ask team members to list why these ideas are so bad. Make sure to include lots of activities, be realistic with your time planning, and allow plenty of time for breaks, spontaneity, free-flowing discussion, and creativity., Youll probably want to allow approximately one hour for each section of the workshop, with a generous slot dedicated to reflection and debriefing when the activities are over., To ensure maximum creativity, youll be going back to basics for your Design Thinking workshop. Ask each participant to place a sticker on the idea they think is best. It's an extremely efficient way of solving pressing product-related issues. As a group, youll now decide on a winning approach. The cross-functional collaboration will consistently bring about the most innovative and bring about the most effective solution to your users problem., 3. This is where your participants will narrow down the broader design challenge (how might we improve the user experience for LoveFoundry customers?) To give you a helping hand, weve put together a handy list of tools and best practices you can follow to make sure you and your workshop group are well prepared for your remote workshop session.. BE CLEAR: this rule applies to any project, but it is particularly important for a workshop considering the limited allocated time. Despite . Required fields are marked *, Effective online tools are a necessity for smooth and engaging virtual workshops and meetings. Most often, these are conducted in person, but you can certainly adapt and conduct a remote Design Thinking workshop. 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.. However, Design Thinking is perhaps most commonly used when a problem cannot be solved using traditional methods, and needs to be approached from a more creative or innovative angle. Perhaps there is already a product in the prototype phase, and you use the tools from the Empathize stage to find out more from your users as they test the product. Unlike virtual workshop ground rules (in which one person is usually the lead), team meetings usually require everyone to operate as a peer. Workshop facilitation is an important skill for any designer, but it can be tricky to master. While there are many ways to describe the process, weve broken it down into three steps: Prepare, Facilitate and Document. You can also include any good photos you took of the workshop. The 5 phases of the design thinking process. The works of art can then be displayed in the workshop room, for your viewing pleasure! Taras Bakusevych 8.5K Followers The goal of the workshop might be to come up with ways to improve the user experience for LoveFoundry customers. Why, or why not? For this activity, encourage participants to sketch out their solution rather than using words. It uses a divergent approach of Empathize -Define-Ideate-Prototype-Test, to design a solution focused towards creating a preferred customer experience. The digital tools you employ will make all the difference to the success of your digital Design Thinking workshop. Some common challenges that a Design Thinking workshop can be used to address include:, A facilitator is the individual responsible for organizing and running a Design Thinking workshop. In addition to writing for the CareerFoundry blog, Emily has been a regular contributor to several industry-leading design publications, including the InVision blog, UX Planet, and Adobe XD Ideas. A prototype is a visual, interactive mock-up of an idea and can be two-dimensional, for example, a drawing or a diagram, or they might take a three-dimensional form. 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. It might be helpful to write it out as a question or statement that can be easily referred back to. 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. Most people learn by using the process in relation to a specific problem, you dont have to use the cake baking analogy. Plan to facilitate several short rounds of brainstorming and open discussion before a unifying statement can be arrived at. To keep your attendees relaxed, comfortable, and free to be creative, keep the following checklist in mind while selecting and preparing your workshops location:, The importance of writing a good workshop agenda should never be underestimated. What goals are we missing? As the North star of the design, its best to align on the statement as early as possible. During this time, teams work through various activities that help model their users, define requirements and develop experiences. The Statement of Opportunity expresses the topline project opportunity from the teams perspective. 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?