Design thinking has emerged as a game-changing approach in various industries, but what sets it apart from other problem-solving methods? Over the past decade, it has shifted from being a trendy buzzword to a fundamental strategy driving innovation across sectors. What makes design thinking so powerful is not just its focus on creativity but its emphasis on understanding the human experience behind every challenge. This approach encourages us to step back and question our assumptions, to explore the problem space with fresh eyes, and to dive deep into the needs and desires of the people we’re designing for. It’s not about finding quick fixes; it’s about solving the right problems in a way that resonates with real people.

Another unique aspect of design thinking is how it has transcended traditional design roles, influencing business leaders, product managers, and even organizational strategies. By promoting empathy and iterative development, it creates a culture of continuous learning and collaboration, which is essential in today’s fast-paced world. This post explores the multifaceted impact of design thinking, delving into its role in prototyping, fostering shared language, enhancing services, and the crucial part that skilled facilitation plays in its success. By the end, you’ll see why design thinking is not just another tool in the innovation toolkit, but a mindset that transforms how we approach complex challenges.

The Rise of Design Thinking in Business Strategy

Over the past two decades, design thinking has evolved from a specialized tool used by designers to a critical approach embraced across various sectors. At its core, design thinking is about addressing the right problem rather than just any problem. This method encourages a deep dive into the issues at hand, pushing teams to challenge assumptions and truly understand the needs of their audience before jumping to solutions.

This shift towards a more thoughtful, user-centered approach has significantly influenced roles beyond traditional design. For example, product managers are increasingly recognized as key players who benefit from thinking like designers. By exploring the problem space thoroughly before considering solutions, these managers help companies avoid surface-level fixes and instead drive towards more meaningful and innovative outcomes. The frameworks and language of design thinking, such as the double diamond model and an emphasis on empathy, have provided a common ground for multidisciplinary teams, fostering collaboration and breaking down silos.

As businesses face growing complexity and uncertainty, the design thinking approach offers a way to navigate these challenges. It provides a structured yet flexible method for tackling problems, encouraging experimentation and iteration. This ability to adapt and evolve solutions is particularly valuable in today’s fast-changing market environments, where agility and innovation are critical to success. Design thinking empowers organizations to not only solve problems but to continuously refine their approaches in response to new insights and emerging trends.

Prototyping: Unleashing Creativity Through Design Thinking

Prototyping is a cornerstone of the design thinking process, offering a hands-on way to bring ideas to life quickly and gather essential feedback. The true power of prototyping lies in its emphasis on speed and creativity rather than perfection. Prototypes don’t need to be flawless; they just need to be sufficient to test a concept and spark new ideas. This mindset reduces the fear of failure, encouraging teams to experiment and take risks.

The iterative nature of prototyping not only refines ideas but also often leads to unexpected and innovative solutions that might not have emerged in a more rigid environment. In our experience, we’ve seen some incredibly creative prototypes, ranging from 3D mock-ups for caregiver events to simple yet effective space designs using cardboard and sticky notes. These rough models serve as powerful tools for exploring possibilities and refining solutions long before any final product is developed. This approach exemplifies the design thinking ethos—focusing on learning and iterating rather than aiming for immediate perfection.

Prototyping also democratizes the design process by involving a broader range of voices and perspectives. When teams collaborate to create prototypes, they draw on diverse experiences and ideas, leading to more well-rounded and innovative solutions. This collaborative approach ensures that the final product or service is not only functional but also resonates with the end users’ needs and preferences. In this way, prototyping acts as both a creative and a unifying force within the design thinking process.

Shared Language: The Glue of Collaborative Problem-Solving

In any collaborative effort, having a shared language is crucial for success, and design thinking provides just that. Terms like “empathize, define, ideate, prototype, test” serve as a common vocabulary that keeps teams aligned and focused on the task at hand. This shared language is more than just jargon; it’s a powerful tool that helps break down silos, enabling different departments to work together seamlessly.

When teams speak the same language, they can move more efficiently through the design thinking process, from deeply understanding the user’s needs to testing and refining solutions. This alignment is particularly important in large organizations where cross-functional collaboration is essential but often challenging. By adopting a common framework, teams can avoid misunderstandings and ensure that everyone is working toward the same goals. Furthermore, this shared language fosters a culture of collaboration and innovation, creating an environment where new ideas can flourish, and team members are empowered to contribute their unique perspectives.

The impact of a shared language goes beyond the design team. It permeates the entire organization, influencing how different departments communicate and collaborate. Whether it’s marketing, sales, or customer service, having a unified approach to problem-solving helps ensure consistency in decision-making and execution. This cultural shift towards a common language of innovation can be a significant competitive advantage, enabling organizations to respond more effectively to challenges and opportunities.

Beyond Products: Applying Design Thinking to Services and Processes

Design thinking isn’t just for products—it’s a versatile approach that can transform services, processes, and even entire organizations. One of the most impactful applications is in service design, where the focus shifts from creating a single product to designing an entire experience. Tools like the service design blueprint allow teams to map out every touchpoint of a service, from what happens behind the scenes to what the customer experiences upfront.

This holistic approach enables organizations to consider all the layers that contribute to a successful service, from logistics and supply chains to customer interactions. By applying design thinking to service design, companies can create more cohesive, consistent, and satisfying experiences for their customers. It’s about looking beyond the obvious and ensuring that every element—visible or not—works together to deliver the desired outcome. This method can uncover opportunities for innovation that might otherwise be overlooked, leading to solutions that are not only creative but also highly effective.

Service design thinking also emphasizes the importance of integrating the customer’s perspective throughout the entire process. By involving customers in the design process, organizations can ensure that the services they develop are truly aligned with user needs and expectations. This approach leads to more personalized and engaging customer experiences, which can significantly enhance brand loyalty and customer satisfaction. Ultimately, applying design thinking to services and processes enables organizations to deliver not just products, but holistic solutions that add real value to their customers’ lives.

The Role of Facilitation in Enhancing Design Thinking Workshops

Facilitation plays a crucial role in bringing the principles of design thinking to life. A skilled facilitator not only guides teams through the design thinking process but also ensures that every voice is heard and that the group stays focused on its goals. The art of facilitation is about creating an environment where creativity can flourish and where participants feel empowered to explore, iterate, and innovate.

One of the key benefits of facilitation in design thinking is its ability to help teams navigate uncertainty. Facilitators provide structure without stifling creativity, using techniques like brainstorming sessions, prototyping exercises, and reflective discussions to keep the group engaged and productive. By fostering a collaborative atmosphere, facilitators can help teams unlock new ideas and move closer to innovative solutions. Importantly, facilitation isn’t limited to those with “facilitator” in their title. Anyone can develop these skills and use them to enhance their team’s performance, making a significant difference in the success of their design thinking efforts.

Facilitators also play a crucial role in managing group dynamics and ensuring that all participants feel included and valued. In a diverse team, different perspectives can sometimes lead to conflict or misunderstanding. A skilled facilitator helps navigate these challenges, turning diversity into a strength rather than a barrier. By creating an inclusive environment where everyone’s ideas are heard and respected, facilitators help teams harness the full potential of their collective creativity. This inclusive approach not only enhances the quality of the solutions generated but also strengthens the team’s cohesion and morale.

Conclusion: Design Thinking as a Universal Approach to Innovation

Design thinking has proven to be a powerful approach for addressing complex problems across a wide range of fields. From its roots in design to its widespread adoption in business strategy, product development, and service design, this methodology offers a flexible and effective framework for innovation. By focusing on empathy, rapid prototyping, shared language, and skilled facilitation, teams can tackle challenges in a more thoughtful and collaborative way, leading to solutions that are both creative and impactful.

As organizations continue to embrace design thinking, it’s clear that its principles can be applied far beyond traditional design roles, offering valuable insights and tools for leaders, managers, and teams across industries. Whether you’re designing a new product, refining a service, or facilitating a workshop, design thinking can help you solve the right problems and create more meaningful outcomes.

The true power of design thinking lies in its versatility and its ability to adapt to different contexts and challenges. By fostering a culture of innovation, collaboration, and continuous learning, design thinking equips organizations with the tools they need to thrive in a rapidly changing world. As more companies recognize the value of this approach, it’s likely that design thinking will continue to shape the future of innovation and problem-solving across industries.

FAQ: Common Questions About Design Thinking

Q: What is the double diamond model in design thinking? A: The double diamond model is a framework that guides teams through the design thinking process. It consists of two diamonds: the first focuses on defining the right problem by diverging (exploring many ideas) and converging (narrowing down to a specific problem). The second diamond emphasizes solving the problem, again through divergence (generating many solutions) and convergence (selecting the best solution). This model helps teams maintain focus and structure while allowing creativity to flourish at each stage.

Q: How can non-designers benefit from design thinking?
A: Non-designers can greatly benefit from design thinking by adopting its core principles, such as empathy and iterative development, to approach problems more creatively and collaboratively. Whether you’re in product management, marketing, customer service, or any other role, design thinking encourages you to deeply understand the needs of the people you serve and develop innovative solutions that resonate with them. It’s not just a method for building products; it’s a way of thinking that enhances decision-making and problem-solving in virtually any context.

Q: What tools are commonly used in design thinking workshops?
A: Common tools in design thinking workshops include empathy maps, customer journey maps, brainstorming techniques, storyboarding, and prototyping materials such as paper, Lego, or digital tools like wireframing software. These tools help teams visualize problems, generate ideas, and create testable solutions quickly and collaboratively. By using these hands-on, interactive methods, teams can explore ideas more effectively and iterate based on real user feedback.

Q: How does facilitation impact the outcome of a design thinking session?
A: Facilitation is critical to the success of a design thinking session because it ensures the process runs smoothly and that participants stay focused on the goal while feeling heard and valued. A skilled facilitator guides the team through uncertainty, encouraging creativity and managing group dynamics. This helps unlock the full potential of diverse ideas, keeping the team productive and ensuring that innovative solutions emerge from the process. In design thinking, facilitation ensures that everyone, regardless of their background or expertise, can contribute meaningfully to the creative process.

The post When Everyone Designs appeared first on Voltage Control.

By now, you’ve probably heard about the design thinking methodology. More industries than ever are taking a human-centric approach to evolve their existing products and generating new ideas to serve their customers better by getting curious about actual user needs, ideating potential solutions, and testing them with real users. Let’s take a closer look at what design thinking and user-centered design is and how to apply it to your organization.

According to statistics, 79% of companies agree that design thinking improves the ideation process, and 71% have enjoyed a significant shift in their work culture after adopting design thinking. While it does contain the word design, design thinking and it’s iterative approach to creative ideas is not only for design teams, in fact, any team can benefit from this human-centered design process. We’ve seen product development teams, multidisciplianry teams exploring new business models, customer success teams designing new customer experiences, and countless other examples.

What is the Design Thinking Process?

Design thinking is a process for creative problem-solving that helps teams move past the first “good ideas” and discover creative solutions. Rather than a one-shoe-fits-all mindset, the design thinking approach encourages a holistic view where uncertainty and ambiguity are welcomed and embraced to consider all sides of a problem. A design mindset can be applied to any life situation, and it aids in developing innovative ideas by considering the bigger picture and allowing that to shape our decisions as we move forward.

The method is steeped in a deep belief that the end-user should be at the heart of all decision-making. The benefit of design thinking is that, through empathy for your customer, consumer, or client, you are able to create products and experiences that truly help people and even change lives.

In this article, we’ll explore the five-step process that enables teams to come up with impactful solutions to real problems that are vetted by the people they intend to serve before they’ve even been built. These key steps will launch you into an innovative and experimental design approach.

Pro-tip: use our Liberating Structures templates to get the most out of the design-thinking process with your team. At Voltage Control we also love to use the Workshop Design Canvas.

The 5-Step Design Thinking Process

1. Empathize 

The first stage of the design process is to develop  a deep understanding of the target audience/customer/consumer and their unique perspective to identify and address the problem at hand. To do this, design thinkers are encouraged to cast aside all assumptions (because assumptions can stifle innovation!) about the problem, the consumers, and the world at large. This allows them to objectively consider any and all possibilities about the customers and their needs.

Typical activities:

• Observations: You’ll go where your users go and see what they care about. 
• Qualitative Interviews: You’ll hold one-on-one interviews with a handful of your users to understand their attitudes on the topic you are exploring. Asking someone to tell a story about the last time they experienced the problem you’re investigating provides a rich description that highlights details you might not have otherwise considered. Check out our Interview Observation template to interview someone that is close to the problem you are having and observe the behavior, success, and pain points.

Immersions: Step into your user’s shoes so you can feel and experience their day-to-day.

Tools like empathy maps can be a great way to consolidate all of the valuable information gleaned from interviews. Empathy maps capture what people do, say, think, and feel in the context of the problem. They help colleagues understand the context of the problem and how people experience it, too.

2. Define

Putting together all of the information gathered from emphasizing in the previous step. The next step is to define the problem statement clearly. The ideal problem statement should be captured from the perspective of human-centered needs rather than focused on business goals. For example, instead of setting a goal to increase signups by 5%, a human-centered target would be to help busy moms provide healthy food for their families.

Based on the frustrations you observed or heard about, come up with questions for how you might solve them. 

Typical Activities

• Clustering and Themes: There are a lot of different ways to go about the Define phase, but it’s safe to say you’ll need a wall of sticky notes; these will be filled with the quotes, observations, and ideas you heard throughout your research. Group and cluster ideas together until you find the prevailing or most prominent themes.
• Problem Statement: Take time to properly articulate the problem statement. Answer the following questions: 1) What is the problem? 2) Who has the problem? 3) Where is the problem? 4) Why does it matter

As you explore the empathy data, focus on identifying patterns and problems across a diverse group of people. Gathering information on how people are currently attempting to solve the problem and how they explore alternative solutions can provide clues into their underlying root problems. 

You can’t solve all of your users’ problems. Identify the most significant or most painful issues they face as you consider what you want to focus on as you move forward.

3. Ideate

Now that the problem you intend to solve is clear, it’s time to brainstorm ways to address those unmet needs. You collect as many ideas as possible at the start, so your team can investigate and test them by the end.

Typical Activities

• Brainstorming: Brainstorming is a critical part of the ideation phase, it is the best way to generate of a wide variety of ideas, all aimed at addressing the problem or challenge at hand. Brainstoming allows the entire team to bring their perspectives, experiences, and insights to the table, fostering diversity and richness in idea generation. Ideas shared can serve as stepping stones lead to innovative, out-of-the-box solutions that might not have been uncovered with a more conventional, linear thinking process. 

• Worst Possible Idea: The “Worst Possible Idea” activity may seem counterproductive,  but it can encourage creativity and eliminate psychological holdups that stall innovative thinking. It allows team members to brainstorm and share their ‘worst ideas’ without fear of judgment or criticism. This fosters an environment where coming up with the “perfect” ideas is eliminated, allowing freedom and creativity to shine. The process of identifying why an idea is ‘the worst’ can help in understanding the parameters and constraints of a problem, offering insights into what an ideal solution should avoid. This exercise also brings a sense of humor and fun into the brainstorming process!

The ideation stage marks the transition from identifying problems to exploring solutions. It flows between idea generation and evaluation, but it’s important that each process remains separate from the other.

When it’s time to generate ideas, do so quickly without focusing on the quality or feasibility of the idea. Ideation techniques are rooted in the idea that we’ll prioritize quantity over quality so that we can move past the first good idea(s) and find the truly novel ones. Only when you’ve fully exhausted your abilities to generate new ideas do you move on to evaluate them. This is your opportunity you can go around the room and discuss the ideas presented to get clarification if needed.

The ideation phase is usually a very creative and freeing phase for a team because they have permission to think of out-of-the-box ideas before deciding what they are going to prototype.

4. Prototype

It’s time to experiment! Through trial and error, your team identifies which of the possible solutions can best solve the identified problem(s). This typically will include scaled-down versions of a finished product or systems in question so you can present and get feedback from the people they are intended to serve.

Typical Activities

• Create a Vision Board: This visual representation of ideas, inspirations, and intended outcomes allows team members to envision the desired final product. By gathering images, drawings, materials, or words that symbolize the goals, functions, and user experience of the prototype, the vision board is a shared reference point for the whole team. It facilitates communication, aligns understanding, and encourages creative problem-solving. The actual process of creating the vision board itself promotes a deeper engagement with the project’s objectives and encourages innovative thinking. 

• Rapid Prototyping: The aim of rapid prototyping is to create low-cost, scaled-down versions of the product or specific features quickly for initial testing. Using paper, sticky notes, cardboard, or digital mockup tools, have the team put their ideas into tangible or visible models. This can be done by drawing, making 3D models, or even creating a storyboard to showcase user interactions. It helps teams understand the look and feel of their solutions, identify potential issues, and validate whether the prototype aligns with users’ needs and expectations. Check out our Take 5 template when you want to collect diverse ideas from the entire room. Within 5 minutes, everyone will be sharing from an intentional perspective using visuals!

The goal is to start with a low-fidelity version of the intended solution and improve it over time based on feedback. Beginning with a paper prototype can help you learn quickly with minimal effort. The prototype should be a realistic representation of the solution that allows you to gain an understanding of what works and doesn’t work. It is changed and updated based on feedback from the Test phase in an iterative process. The rapid, low-cost, lightweight nature of prototyping also allows you to develop multiple solutions to test in tandem to identify the best possible solution for meeting those unmet user needs.

5. Test

The prototype is at the center of the final phase as we put all our ideas to the test.  It’s important to note that the testing phase is part of an interactive cycle. You’ll have the opportunity to hear from your users again —just as you did in the early phase, Empathize. User testing is critical to understand how your audience will react to the ideas in your prototype and how desirable that experience will be. Unlike usability testing, where we are seeking to learn how difficult it is to perform certain tasks,  you are allowing them to interact with your prototype to observe their responses and gain insights on whether or not it solves their problem.

• Observational Testing: In this exercise, real users interact with the final prototype in a controlled setting, while the design team observes their behavior and responses. The goal is not just to confirm if the solution works as intended but to gain deeper insights into how the user interacts with the product, how they approach the problem the product is meant to solve, and where difficulties or confusion arrise. Observational testing can offer valuable, sometimes unexpected, insights into user behavior and experience that might be missed with traditional feedback. It’s an empathetic approach that focuses on observing and understanding the users needs and wants.

• Iterative Testing: This process is all about using the results of the initial testing to make improvements, and then testing again! Check out our 5 act Interview Cheat Sheet to build the best team for the project. The objective is to constantly refine and enhance the solution based on user feedback. Each iteration of the prototype is tested with users, and the insights gathered are used to further refine the solution. This could involve making minor tweaks or massive changes depending on the feedback received. Iterative testing helps in ensuring that the final product is as effective, user-friendly, and problem-solving as possible. The process keeps going until the team is confident that they have the most innovative and best possible version of the solution ready for launch.

Testing with real users is essential because everything is ultimately about the people who will use your products, and that is the true nature of the design thinking model. After you collect insights from users, it’s time to revisit the problem statement and reflect on how well the prototype is meeting needs and resolving frustrations.

You want to see what real people think about your idea. This stage allows for all details to be flushed out and refined to create the best solution possible.

Putting the 5 steps to work.

As you reflect on the 5 steps: Empathize, Define, Ideate, Prototype, and Test, keep in mind that each step builds on its predecessor, guiding teams through an exploration of user needs, challenges, and solutions. Yet, as any seasoned design thinker will affirm, this journey isn’t strictly a linear process.

The beauty of the design thinking process is it invites and supports creativity and flexibility. While we’ve outlined the steps sequentially, it’s most effective for teams to revisit earlier stages based on newfound insights or challenges. For instance, feedback during the Testing phase might propel a team back to the Ideation or even Empathy stage. This iterative nature is not a sign of backtracking but rather a testament to the process’s commitment to staying true to user needs.

In essence, design thinking is a creative dance. It’s a dynamic interplay of understanding, ideating, experimenting, and refining. With each iteration, solutions become more attuned, innovative, and user-centric.

So, as you delve into the design thinking steps, remember: The route isn’t always straightforward, and that’s perfectly okay. Embrace the meandering path, the revisits, the detours. Because in this iterative journey, every step, whether forward or backward, is a step towards genuine innovation that resonates deeply with users.

Need an expert facilitator for your next meeting, gathering, or workshop? Let’s talk.

Our extensive network of Facilitation Certificaiton alumni are skilled at facilitating events of all kinds, including design thinking workshops, innovation sessions, and Design Sprints. Please reach out to us at hello@voltagecontrol.com. We’d be happy to connect you with one of our expert alumni.

The post 5 Steps of the Design Thinking Process: A Step-by-Step Guide appeared first on Voltage Control.

The best and most successful products and services are designed with the end-user in mind. When you understand your customer, you can effectively create what they want and need. That’s the idea behind design thinking– a human-centric approach to ideate and solve problems creatively. The methodology is both a mindset and a process to generate bold and innovative ideas and tackle business challenges and problems. You can better understand the human behind your next product, method, service, or process idea using design thinking exercises during any phase of your project. These exercises offer an engaging, interactive, hands-on approach to problem-solving.

Design thinking exercises and design thinking workshops encompass the 5-step design thinking process:

1. Empathize – Understand the perspective of the target audience/customer/consumer to identify and address the problem at hand.
2. Define – Define the problem statement clearly.
3. Ideate –  Brainstorm ways to address identified unmet needs.
4. Prototype – Identity which of the possible solutions can best solve the identified problem(s).
5. Test – Test the product with your target audience to get feedback.

This five-step process enables teams to come up with impactful solutions to real problems that are vetted by the people they intend to serve before they’ve even been built. There are specific design thinking exercises that can help you and your team get the most out of each step. Let’s take a look at some of our favorites.

Design Thinking Exerices

We’ve compiled some of our favorite design thinking exercises for you to use among your teams as soon as tomorrow. Plug them in where you need them in your project process and watch the magic unfold.

1. Warmups

At your next meeting, don’t dive right into logistics or action items. Open with one of these warm-ups or “icebreakers” to set the tone for the meeting. They help shake people up and establish that you will be thinking differently in this session. Use one or two of these design thinking exercises to start your meeting or workshop on the right note. They can also be used to punctuate the day and energize the group after long activities or breaks.

Yes, But vs. Yes, And

This warm-up shows the power of building others’ ideas versus shooting them down. Taken from one of the principles of improv comedy, in this activity, you pair people and have them do the following:

• Part One: Person A suggests doing something with Person B, who has to answer with a reason not to do it, starting with “Yes, but…” Person A responds with a counter-suggestion also using “Yes, but…” (Example: Person A: “Let’s go to the grocery store.” Person B: “Yes, but our refrigerator is broken.” Person A: “Yes, but, we still need to eat.”)
• Part Two: Person A makes a suggestion, but now Person B answers with “Yes, and…” And so on… (Example: Person A: “Let’s go to the grocery store.” Person B: “Yes, and let’s get avocados.” Person A: Yes, and let’s make guacamole.”)

Impromptu Networking

In this exercise, take about 20 minutes for participants to meet in pairs and introduce themselves to each other and answer the question: “What big challenge do you bring to this gathering? What do you hope to get from and give this group or community?” By the end, each person will talk to about four people and learn something new about their colleagues or teammates. Impromptu Networking is excellent when your meeting attendees don’t know each other, or even when they do; either way, participants quickly gain new perspectives on the people they’ll be working with throughout the meeting or day.

Nine Whys

Like Impromptu Networking, the Nine Whys is a Liberating Structures activity. Here’s how they describe this warm-up:

“Ask, “What do you do when working on ______ (the subject matter or challenge at hand)? Please make a short list of activities.” Then ask, “Why is that important to you?” Keep asking, “Why? Why? Why?” up to nine times or until participants can go no deeper because they have reached the fundamental purpose for this work.”

By asking “Why?” so many times in a row, you can ultimately get to a clear understanding of why you are gathering and what the purpose of your meeting is.

2. Empathize

Empathy is a critical starting point for any design thinking endeavor. It means making design and business decisions from the perspective of the end-user or customer and truly understanding and anticipating their needs. These design thinking exercises help you get into the minds of your users, identify patterns and challenges, and relate these to the problem your team needs to solve.

Personas

Creating personas is an effective way to focus on your user and ensure that you are designing for their top needs. Personas are a representation of your target user — their typical characteristics, challenges, and desires. On average, you create one to three personas for your project so that you can focus on different needs and inspire divergent ways of looking at a problem.

This worksheet (available for download here) shows you the different aspects you might define for your persona.

Find another good explanation for how to create a persona here.

User Journey Mapping

User or customer journey mapping is another critical exercise when you are trying to build empathy for the user and uncover new ways to answer their top needs. Start by identifying all of the moments that a user goes through from start to finish when interacting with your particular product, service, or experience. These are your moments or milestones along the top of your journey map.

For example, imagine that you are designing a new experience of going through the TSA checkpoint at the airport. Your moments along the top of this user journey map might be: Pack for Trip — Travel to Airport — Arrive at Airport — Find Security Line — Show ID to TSA — Go through Security — Find Gate — Arrive at Destination.

Once you have your top-level journey moments or touchpoints, use your personas (see above) to go step-by-step and capture what your user is feeling, thinking, and doing at every phase. Through this process, you can begin to map the breadth of problems your user faces to identify the most prominent issues to tackle through design or innovation.

Read more about journey mapping here.

3. Ideation

Ideation is the phase of your project when you need to generate many different possible solutions or answers to your user’s problems or challenges. You don’t want to come up with one idea and put all your energy and focus into that. The goal of ideation is to go wide, come up with tons of ideas (even crazy ones) so that you have a lot to work with when it is time to focus on some ideas to prototype and test. When you need to get the creativity flowing, these design thinking exercises will unleash your thought process.

SCAMPER

SCAMPER is a method of focused brainstorming. But, rather than just saying “Come up with ideas!”, the SCAMPER acronym runs you through seven techniques for idea generation: Substitute, Combine, Adapt, Modify, Put to another use, Eliminate and Reverse.

You use SCAMPER like this: first, identify the product or service you’re working with or the business question at hand. Run through the SCAMPER list and ask yourself questions based on the letters. (You can feel free to jump around and focus on the ones that are inspiring you the most.)

For example, let’s say you work at Uber. You need to think of ways to innovate. You take Combine and think: How could I combine Uber with another experience that riders need? You say to yourself: Riders need food when they are coming home in an Uber late at night. This might lead you to think of an experience where Uber riders can order pizza and a car at the same time. Their driver arrives with a hot pizza in the car and the rider can eat it on the way home. (Ok, this example might just describe UberEats, but you get the idea.)

Read more about SCAMPER and find prompting questions for each letter here.

Crazy 8s

Crazy 8s is an activity that we run as part of every Design Sprint, but it can be used anytime you want to come up with a bunch of ideas quickly. The simplicity of this one is wonderful:

1. Grab a piece of paper and fold it into eight sections
2. Set a timer for 8 minutes
3. Have participants sketch a distinct idea in each section. (Remind them that the ideas don’t have to be amazing, or even viable. The point is getting ideas down on paper and not censoring themselves.)

Find out more about Crazy 8s here.

4. Decisions

It can be easy and fun to come up with new ideas and solutions. But, making decisions? Not always as fun or straightforward. Thankfully, design thinking provides us with some great methods to help filter information. Try these design thinking exercises to help you make creative and impactful decisions.

Affinity Grouping

Affinity grouping is a way to bubble up big themes in a large group of ideas. Assess all of the ideas you’ve generated as a group. Hopefully, you’re working with Post-its, and you can start to move or cluster like ideas together. Create a name or theme for each group of ideas. Once you have a set of big ideas, you can vote as a group about what is most important to focus on.

Dot Voting

Dot voting is another way you can get a sense of what ideas are resonating as most important with the group. Give everyone in the group 3–5 (or more!) sticky dots. At the same time, have everyone put their dots on the idea or concept that they like the most. In the end, you have a heat map of the ideas that the group gravitates toward.

Note and Vote

Note and Vote is another method that comes out of the Design Sprint. The benefit of this exercise is that it gives everyone an equal vote or voice in decision-making. It’s super simple but effective.

Let’s say you have a series of ideas that you are reviewing as a group. Have everyone silently write down which idea is their favorite on a Post-it note. Once they’re done, have everyone put their vote up on the wall or whiteboard at the same time. Review the votes, see what idea has the most votes, and have a conversation around the pros and cons of the 1–3 “winners.”

Design thinking exercises are a highly effective way to ensure your next project is a success. Incorporate them with your team today and create meaningful work together. Pro-tip: use our Liberating Structures templates to get the most out of the design-thinking process with your team.

Learn more about design thinking and facilitation at one of our workshops or events!

We host regular Facilitation Lab meetups, boot camps, summits, and virtual workshops. See a full list of upcoming events here.

The post The Best Design Thinking Exercises for Each Phase of a Project appeared first on Voltage Control.

Within any organization, change is a given. If leaders approach change without empathy, transparency, or understanding, that change can be blown out of proportion and feared. Each team member can and will interpret the consequences of change differently. As leaders shrinking the change at hand and reassessing culture are critical to the success and the sustainability of the change at hand.

We believe the change is challenging but possible to achieve with a healthy balance when handled proactively. In fact, change offers an opportunity to reassess culture and find ways to grow and innovate.

Reassessing Culture and the Importance of Change

Anytime you make a change, it’s wise to step back and understand the potential effects of what you’re implementing or what is happening. You must make a change, so why take your baggage into that change? Seize the moment. Think about who you are and who your team is versus replicating what previously existed in your organization’s space. 

For example, it can be a time to reassess culture if you’re going remote or forced remote. Use the shift to remote as an opportunity to ask how you do so and which cultural shifts might come along with the change. What are you happy or not happy with?

View this situation as an opportunity to debrief. Invite the team to discuss how you show up and operate so that you can design with intention. Are there company core values that you need to reassess? Are the needs of all of your employees being met? Is there room for growth within your values and company culture? Seize the moment. 

A UX design mentality captures this concept well. This is essentially the act of being open to criticism of the system’s design to add value to a situation or solve a problem effectively. 

Ask the following questions to start:

1. Why are you facing the change?
2. Is something in our culture causing the necessity for change?
3. How do you utilize experimentation and exploration to it move forward?

As another example, take organizations that build the AI systems of today. If they don’t take thoughtful care of how they build those systems, then bias, misunderstanding, and lack of empathy will creep in.

Bias represents traditional systems and how you all viewed work in the past. The same thing is true if you simply moved everything to remote without delicate consideration. Our policies and the ways you meet, connect, collaborate, and do things are influenced by past mistakes, consequences of things that are out of our control, or things you’re reacting to that are no longer valid.

On the surface, this concept is simple. The key is knowing and implementing the tactics to reassess. 

This article discusses the following tactics for thinking about culture and using change to your advantage.

• Establishing psychological safety.
• Asking questions.
• Staying in tune with the effects of change on people.
• Using design thinking.
• Reassessing urgency.

1. Establish psychological safety.

Recognize purpose within change. 

Innovation happens slowly. In our conversation with Jamie Gardner, she highlights the importance of patience within innovation. Real change happens with time, so communicating the change at a high level and diving deeper into the change incrementally helps build trust and psychological safety. 

Getting people involved will align your team at a high level from the start. 

It’s more productive and allows for transparency to align people and establish a culture of trust before diving deeper into the details and challenges of the upcoming change. 

Involve those that a change will affect. 

Building trust enables people’s willingness to experiment with change. When people feel invested in change, they want to see it through. They’re willing to listen to problems and assess what’s working and what isn’t for them on a personal and organizational level. 

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To make way for change, it’s essential to identify the “why” behind your desire for it. If so, it’s unlikely to last. Is your change aligned with shared values? Does it project a line of sight in a direction you want to head? That’s a promising start.

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Empathy and clear communication make all the difference in guiding a team through change.

Give people perspective so that they can trust through understanding. The more individuals are left in the dark about the “why”, the greater the tendency to question intention. When a change has the potential to alter finances dramatically, position, or social standing, for example, being left in the dark is a surefire way to invite resistance to change. 

2. Ask questions.

High-level navigation of change begins with asking the right questions. 

What are you proud of? What do you appreciate? What’s not so great? What’s aspirational? What’s dragging you down, and what’s lifting you up? How do you talk about our culture internally that is not being manifested?

You might say that you have specific values, and you aren’t actually living them. That’s the “saying – doing gap”. Change can, but doesn’t always have to, involve a values shift. However, when faced with change reevaluating our values on a company-wide level has the potential to lead to more meaningful answers.

Leave room to address miscellaneous questions and concerns. It provides space for empathy and growth as leaders and teammates. Worst case, set some time aside and don’t end up needing it, but it’s wise to assume that you didn’t cover all of our bases in the planning process alone.

3. Stay in tune with how change is affecting people.

Acknowledge possible negative outcomes. 

• How will this affect our culture?
• Which communication practices will be interrupted?
• How can you communicate effectively throughout this change?
• Is this change long-lasting?
• What can you do to evolve during and after this change? Do our teammates feel supported sufficiently enough to handle this change? 

Being human-centered is the key to lasting and innovative change. While facing your change, it’s important that you’re able to create a space for innovation. At times, you may need to lean heavier on specific team values. When sharing your change with your team, utilize experimentation. Ask everyone to express themselves in a new way. Rather than vocalizing, or writing out their fears or hesitations, invite them to draw their emotions. Get back to pencil and paper. When looking at getting your entire team involved, offer a variety of ways to express what values they hold near and dear. This allows for everyone’s voice to be heard, which will truly shift your company culture to one that is transparent, inclusive, and fully prepared to embrace change. 

4. Use Design Thinking.

Design thinking is worth considering as a more holistic approach. It centers around empathy first with a focus on people, and people are at the core of every organization. As you identify these possible effects of change, design thinking challenges us to move forward in testing the process of these ideas. 

Design thinking plays a crucial role in engagement by centering the needs of each participant and ensuring that each person involved has a stake in the organizational change’s success.

As we’ve said before, change is a type of experimentation. Some changes must be made, but you must keep in mind that you can find ways to work with change rather than settle on a single way of thinking or working. The process of ideation around this change, even if the change itself is inevitable, is essential.

As you implement the change, you challenge yourself to notice differences in how you think, work, and interact. Whatever process you choose to guide that change, you enhance your understanding of your team, strengths, and opportunities for improvement. Viewing the initial change as part of design thinking allows us to develop our approach with time. 

If you hold yourselves and each other accountable for checking in and making necessary adjustments to our practices, you’ll be much more successful at achieving our full potential. Again, if you’re aligned at a high level early on, you’re more inclined to work together towards a fitting solution.

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5. Checking in and reassessing urgency. 

Take some time to step back as a team and determine priorities. 

In the midst of change, it’s easy to get caught up in the logistics and push to have tasks completed quickly just to make progress, but that often leaves room for mistakes and forgotten priorities. 

We should consistently look to stick to our values, but beyond that, what are our cultural non-negotiables? What needs to continue, and what can take a backseat in order to keep our determined priorities at the forefront?

Step back and ask why you’re making this change in the first place — considering who’s involved. How can you work together to ensure you’re on the same timeline? What’s most urgent about the change process?

Small changes ultimately make the most significant differences within innovation. What are you making time for amidst this change? Which practices should you integrate? Are you leaving time for learning as individuals? Are you practicing self-awareness? 

If we want to innovate, we must change. If we want to create lasting change, we must consistently reassess the effects that change has on culture, what our teams and organizations value, and how the change ahead will be sustainable.

Voltage Control can help you change the way you think about growth and pursue innovation. Through custom-designed programs, we guide leaders in navigating change with cultural stability. 

Our change programs aim at unleashing full potential through practices that solidify learning and help you realize your potential as leaders and teams. We offer a range of formats, from courses to workshops, to support you through your transition. 

In need of some guidance? Reach out to us at hello@voltagecontrol.com to discuss what we offer.

The post 5 Tips for Reassessing Culture in the Face of Change appeared first on Voltage Control.

Using design thinking for change management can transform your approach to change leadership. Design thinking and change management are two disciplines that enable leaders to identify and implement new ways of working. Merging the two processes allows for a new approach to designing change.

Statistics show that change initiatives are 30% more likely to last when those most impacted by the change are also fully invested in creating it. Blending the best of design thinking and change management can create an engaging strategy for change.

In this article, we explore how to use design thinking for change management in the following ways:

• Design Thinking as a Practice for Change
• What does it Mean to Design Change?
• Redesigning Change Management 
• Embracing Design Thinking for Change Management
• Designing Your Next Change

Design Thinking as a Practice for Change

Though design thinking is typically considered a practice for product development, design thinking is an all-encompassing process that offers a different approach to change leadership. The design thinking discipline focuses on centering people at the heart of any initiative. Leaders can create solutions that best fit those most affected by the change by taking a human-first perspective to change. 

Design thinking for change management plays a key role in engagement by centering the needs of each participant and ensuring that each person involved has a stake in the success of the project. This process asks all participants to center each other’s feelings, attitudes, knowledge, and beliefs in the decision-making process. This approach increases the chance that any new changes will be accepted and implemented in the long term. 

Using design thinking for change management also encourages participants to keep refining their ideas. This process of consistently reviewing and revising is ideal for developing initiatives that best meet the needs of all parties involved.

What does it Mean to Design Change?

Designing change allows for an expansive and creative approach to change-making. This process encourages idea generation through the collaborative effort of team members, leaders, and stakeholders in an organization. Bringing together a diverse group of people to co-create change allows for the most innovative and intentional ideas going forward. Each participant can draw from their collective perspectives and experiences to design the best solutions. 

The design process completely challenges traditional problem-solving. Traditional problem solving uses convergent thinking: choosing a solution out of the only choices available. Alternatively, design thinking allows for creative problem-solving through divergent thinking: innovating the best choices in a holistic, integrated, and collaborative manner. 

Businesses like Airbnb reveal how design thinking for change management can completely transform a company. This innovative approach to change helped Airbnb create a culture of experimentation and double its revenue within a week. 

Frustrated with their lack of growth, the founders of Airbnb realized they needed to change and change quickly. Instead of operating as a tech startup, Airbnb co-founder Joe Gebbia realized they needed a non-scalable approach: applying design thinking to their business model.

In a non-scalable experiment, Gebbia and his team rented a professional-grade camera, flew to New York, and hit the ground taking high-resolution images of renters’ properties. Within a week, Airbnb doubled its revenue and fast-tracked its success.

Redesigning Change Management 

Change is an unavoidable part of every organization. Companies that are best equipped to handle the challenges that come with change actively reframe change through the lens of innovative change management. Change is an abstract concept that often causes confusion, fear, and chaos. Change management responds to the chaos of change as leaders manage external factors. 

Leaders who champion organizational change management focus heavily on the process of implementation and acceptance of change as a whole. When we consider change management through the lens of design thinking, we can paint a picture of change that benefits all parties involved. 

Embracing Design Thinking for Change Management

Design thinking for change management focuses on cultivating a purpose. With design thinking, organizations can center their values and ideals for the future as the starting point for all change initiatives. Moreover, the design thinking process encourages participants to take a procedural approach to implement change. While the outcome may still be a mystery, organizations can use the established process of design thinking to embrace change management. 

Merging both design thinking and change management practices requires a keen understanding of the similarities and differences of each methodology:

Design Thinking

Design thinking focuses predominantly on designing with a solution in mind. This process highlights an innovative approach to creating change, focusing on ideation and experimenting to find the best solution. 

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In design thinking, participants focus on “what?” as they navigate a challenge. Relying solely on design thinking for change often misses the mark of addressing change initiatives’ implementation and adoption aspects. 

Change Management

Change management prioritizes the adoption of an idea, using the implementation of that idea as a vehicle for change. Proponents of change management rely on influential leadership to answer the “how” of change implementation. 

This approach is most successful when team members reach a certain level of “readiness” to accept change initiatives. Typically, change management misses the part of engaging others in the design and decision-making process. Without the necessary engagement, leaders may implement a change that stakeholders had no say in creating. 

When merging both change management practices and design thinking methodology, we can address the “why” of making change. On a larger scale, design thinking for change management allows all participants to develop a sense of authorship when it comes to deciding what changes best suit all parties and how to navigate the challenges that accompany a change. 

Relying on research, process, and new ways of working, design thinking for change management encourages each stakeholder to engage in the process of creating change by centering empathy. Together, both practices focus on creating a new way to work by asking why change needs to happen, what processes to use to implement change, and discovering how the change will ultimately take place. 

Designing Your Next Change

Change can be an ambiguous process. Applying design thinking principles to your next change will help you find clarity in the midst of the unknown. 

Consider the following 5-step design thinking model to best implement change management:

1. Empathize with Those Impacted By the Change

The first phase in design thinking for change management is to empathize with those that are impacted by the change. Change leaders should empathize with all stakeholders by acknowledging and validating their beliefs, experiences, and fears. Leaders should empathize with all parties involved by adopting their perspectives and mindset. This process should include research into how each person will be impacted by potential changes as well as the pain points associated with a change. 

2. Create Consensus on What Changes Need to Be Made

The next step is creating consensus on the most pressing changes. Leaders and team members should develop a relevant problem statement using the information from the first phase. All participants should reach a consensus on what the main problem is. This way, they can work together to co-create the best solution in the following phases. 

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3. Generate Solutions for Potential Challenges

Innovation drives design thinking for change management. Use this phase to harness the most innovative ideas. Encourage team members to think outside the box and develop as many potential solutions as possible. 

Techniques like storyboarding, role-playing, mind-mapping, and brainstorming are excellent ways to identify the most appropriate solutions. 

4. Prototype to Create Solutions 

The prototyping phase encourages all stakeholders to develop solutions on a small scale. The purpose of this phase is to further explore ideas from the ideation phase as they relate to the previously defined problem. Deliverables for this phase may include building a physical prototype or detailing a process or idea. 

5. Run Experiments to Find What Works

The final phase allows participants to test their prototypes. This step intends to identify a solution that is the most appropriate for real-world scenarios. All participants should agree on a final solution that resolves the problem from the second phase. 

Use design thinking for change management to bring innovation to the forefront in your future change initiatives. Apply the best of both practices to your next change strategy.

If you want to implement design thinking throughout your organization, we can help. At Voltage Control, we assist leaders and teams in thriving through change! Contact us to learn more about the best way to align design thinking to your next change initiative. 

The post Co-Creating Change: Why Design Thinking for Change Management Works appeared first on Voltage Control.

“It must be considered that there is nothing more difficult to carry out, nor more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to handle, than to initiate a new order of things.”

Designing change strategy is easier said than done. In a perfect world, changes are welcomed with excitement and eagerness to shift the status quo. However, change is often met with fear, anger, and resentment in the real world.

While change is the only constant in life, statistics show that only 34% of change initiatives are clear successes.  

In order to initiate successful changes, organizations must invest more time and resources in creating a human-centered change strategy that allows for long-term alignment, implementation, and acceptance. 

In this article, we explore the best way to begin designing change strategy on the following topics:

• Addressing Resistance to Change
• Exploring the Fundamentals of Change
• Designing Change Strategy with Design Thinking

Addressing Resistance to Change

Designing change strategy starts with acknowledging the main obstacle to change: resistance.

Resistance is a guarantee when it comes to introducing organizational change. While this is a well-known fact, the truth is that too few people plan for designing change strategies with this resistance in mind. Organizational change efforts are always going to face some form of resistance. Failure to consider this resistance may prove disastrous for any change initiatives going forward.

Bolster your change strategy by creating a plan to face resistance. Start by predicting the form resistance will take to tackle the most common forms of resistance. Experts reveal that people resist organizational change for the following reasons:

• Team members are afraid to lose a valuable experience.

Your team members likely have grown accustomed to the status quo in your organization. While change is inevitable, team members will likely resist if they’ve grown attached to your current company culture. In order to overcome this level of resistance, it’s important to communicate the value that the impending changes will bring to your organization. 

• Team members misunderstand the coming changes and their implications. 

Another cause of resistance is the fear of the unknown. Team members often attribute future changes to a negative impact on their work and their stability with the company. Leaders should address these fears by explaining the coming changes and detailing why they are necessary. This will help to alleviate the team members’ fears and help them welcome the coming changes. 

• The team members believe that the coming changes aren’t necessary. 

For organizational change to take place, leaders must achieve buy-in from all participants. Too often, team members believe a change to be unnecessary or ineffective. Leaders should make an effort to communicate why the change is necessary and bring all team members on board.  

• Team members have a low tolerance for change.

It isn’t uncommon for people to have a low tolerance for change. Most team members seek a sense of stability from the organization, and change threatens this stability. Team leaders must validate these facts and seek to reassure their team members that the changes that are coming will benefit everyone. 

Exploring The Fundamentals of Change

When designing change strategy, it’s important to understand what change means at its core. Learning about and adopting the fundamentals of change allow organizations to make change strategies a regular part of their company culture.

Change management experts share that organizations need three things for change to manifest:

• Time 
• An updated company culture
• Positive motivation

Apply these fundamentals of change in the following ways:

1. Take the Time to Make a Change

Lasting change needs time to manifest. In designing change strategy, it’s important to create sustained change initiatives that are built to last beyond the short term. Create a strategy that allows for temporary setbacks to ensure long-term success. With a reasonable timetable in mind, you’ll be best equipped to introduce new change initiatives and will give your team members the greatest ability to adopt these changes. 

2. Change Your Company Culture

In order for change to take hold in an organization, the work environment and company culture must change at its core. Designing a completely transformed work environment allows for the greatest behavioral change throughout every level of an organization. By redesigning your company culture and offering team members a new way to work, you’ll give team members the support and resources they need to face resistance to change in stride.

3. Focus on Positive Motivation

Designing change strategy around positive motivation changes everything. Successful change must be rooted in social change as it is the people who are responsible for supporting and sustaining new initiatives. Leaders should celebrate the upsides of change by highlighting the positive aspects of a better future and company culture. By getting all stakeholders excited about upcoming changes, you’ll be able to guarantee sustainable buy-in for the long term.  

Designing Change Strategy with Design Thinking

Design thinking is an innovative methodology that allows organizations to approach designing change strategies in an entirely new way. This process informs idea generation by encouraging stakeholders to implement change through collaboration. With the power of design thinking, organizations harness the perspective and experience of all team members to design, implement and maintain change. 

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Design thinking is based on divergent thinking: the process of inviting in a holistic and integrated manner. By merging design thinking and change management, organizations are able to increase innovation and collaboration as they introduce change initiatives. Through organizational change management, you’ll be able to start designing change strategy with design thinking and take a human-centric approach to change management. This helps team members align themselves with the goals and drives of an upcoming change as they become part of the transformative experience themselves.

By introducing change initiatives through design thinking, you’ll encourage team members to have empathy for the needed shifts as they adopt the changes even faster. 

As you start designing change strategy with a human-centered approach, consider the following elements of the design thinking process:

1. Develop Empathy for the Change

Change can only take place if everyone is truly aligned with the shift. Starting with the first phases of design thinking, you’ll encourage your team to empathize with the need for change and the new initiatives that need to take place. This stage should include learning as much as possible about your organization’s current issues and problems.

2. Define the Problem the Change Addresses

With the information from the first phase, your team should now define the specific problem the upcoming change will address. This phase aims to determine a human-centered change initiative that will place all stakeholders at the center of the change. 

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3. Ideate Solutions for Change Strategy

Inviting all team members to participate in the ideation phase is crucial to creating buy-in for the forthcoming change. In this phase, team members are invited to collaboratively develop as many solutions as possible.

4. Prototype and Test Change Strategies 

Implementing change is one of the most challenging aspects of designing change strategy. The design thinking approach encourages a trial and error process to test change initiatives before fully implementing them. This allows leaders and teams to review and refine each initiative before selecting the most appropriate and effective change management strategy. 

Significant change takes place in this phase as team members work to identify the best possible solution. During this phase, you’ll continuously adapt your strategy to account for systematic and environmental changes as stakeholders all play an active role in bringing this change into reality. 

Designing change strategy takes an intentional approach to creative problem-solving. Are you and your team struggling with an organizational change? We help leaders and teams thrive through change!

Contact Voltage Control to learn more about how we can help you make lasting change. 

The post Taking a Human-Centered Approach to Designing Change Strategy appeared first on Voltage Control.

Design thinking is imperative for companies to unleash their team’s full potential. Let us take a deep dive into 8 great Design Thinking Examples!

In the Harvard Business Review article “Why Design Thinking Works,” Jeanne Liedtka reveals the results of a seven-year study she did looking at 50 business projects in a range of sectors. What she found was this: “I have seen that…design thinking…has the potential to do for innovation exactly what TQM [total quality management] did for manufacturing: unleash people’s full creative energies, win their commitment, and radically improve processes.”

Design thinking is an undeniably powerful tool for companies, but what does it look like in practice?

Design thinking is an undeniably powerful tool for companies, but what does it look like in practice? How have organizations applied it and how does it work? Is design thinking training something your company needs? Read the following design thinking examples and case studies to discover how design thinking has been successfully applied by many companies. Bonus: learn the key foundations in design thinking to better solve problems and seize opportunities in our Design Thinking Foundations e-course–an excellent tool for the entire team.

How has design thinking been applied to different industries, challenges, and business sectors? Here are eight examples of how it has impacted real companies and teams.

1. Airbnb

Published in First Round Review, this article — “How Design Thinking Transformed Airbnb from a Failing Startup to a Billion Dollar Business” —outlines how the famed start-up went from $200 a week profit to the “unicorn” it is today.

Design thinking is a part of Airbnb’s success; in particular, they built a culture of experimentation: “It was only when they gave themselves permission to experiment with non-scalable changes to the business that they climbed out of what they called the ‘trough of sorrow.’”

2. PillPack

This case study describes how PillPack started as a startup-in-residence at IDEO Cambridge. Working with designers and using a human-centered approach, PillPack refined their brand vision, strategy, and identity across channels.

PillPack was called one of the best inventions of 2014 by Time Magazine and Amazon bought PillPack for $1 Billion in 2018. I think you could safely say that their design thinking approach was successful.

3. Clean Team

There are many great examples of how design thinking has been applied to the social sector. This case study describes Clean Team, which applied design thinking to provide in-home toilets for Ghana’s urban poor.

The case study describes the project and its success: “For the millions of Ghanaians without in-home toilets, there are few good options when it comes to our bodies’ most basic functions. Working with Unilever and Water and Sanitation for the Urban Poor (WSUP), and IDEO.org developed Clean Team, a comprehensive sanitation system that delivers and maintains toilets in the homes of subscribers. Clean Team now serves 5,000 people in Kumasi, Ghana, making lives cleaner, healthier, and more dignified.”

4. IBM

IBM is an example of a corporate giant who has deeply invested in design thinking and building a large internal design team. And, they’ve seen the work pay off—this article talks about how IBM has seen a 301% (!) ROI by banking on design thinking. Another impressive thing about IBM is that they’ve made their enterprise design thinking assets available to everyone through this open toolkit.

5. Stanford Hospital

Design thinking has even found its way into the world of medicine and is seen by many as fundamental to the future of wellness. This case study describes how design thinking was used in a two-day course by the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford to explore ways to improve the patient experience in the emergency room.

Additionally, the article describes how Stanford administrators have been using design thinking to envision other new experiences for the hospital: “SHC staff used design thinking to complete a plan to redesign two nursing units in the current hospital to serve only patients with cancer.”

6. Uber Eats

This article by a former designer on the UberEATS team describes how they approach their food delivery service with a design thinking mindset. One of the top takeaways from the article is how empathy is essential to their practice: “To understand all our different markets and how our products fit into the physical conditions of each city, we constantly immerse ourselves in the places where our customers live, work, and eat. Sitting in our offices in San Francisco or New York, we can’t truly understand the experiences of a person on the streets of Bangkok or London.”

7. Golden Gate Regional Center

The Harvard Business Review article “Better Service, Faster: A Design Thinking Case Study” describes how design thinking was used by the Golden Gate Regional Center (GGRC), an organization that provides services and financial support to people with developmental disabilities in the San Francisco Bay Area.

GGRC worked with design students from Stanford to rethink their lengthy assessment process, which often took months. One outcome of the project was a culture change inside GGRC toward design thinking: “GGRC is now brainstorming improvement ideas and figuring out ways to prototype them on a regular basis.”

8. Bank of America

We’ll end with one of the classic design thinking examples, which comes from Bank of America. Invision’s case study shares how the bank partnered with design consultancy IDEO in 2004 to understand how to get more people to open bank accounts. They ultimately came up with the Keep the Change program. This highly successful banking initiative came out of the design thinking research the IDEO team did where they found savers were intentionally rounding up when writing checks.

To learn more about how to apply the design thinking process to business, go here. If you want to build your own toolkit of design thinking tools, check out our resources.If you’re ready to start using design thinking, sign up for our online course.

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It’s clear: The most productive meetings start with a clear plan, proper facilitation skills, and the right remote design thinking tools and tips to get the job done. Statistics show that the secret to running exciting virtual meetings is in how the meeting is planned, as 64% of meeting-goers get excited about well-planned meetings. 

With the right approach and process, you’ll understand the key to planning and running well-structured meetings.

In this article, we’ll discuss:

• Running Remote Design Thinking Meetings
• The Role of a Remote Facilitator
•  Design Thinking Facilitation Tips
• Remote Design Thinking Tools 
• Learn to Run Magical Meetings 
• What to Expect From a Magical Meeting Workshop

Running Remote Design Thinking Meetings

Remote design thinking meetings use design thinking as a framework for virtual sessions. Running remote design thinking meetings is an innovative way to harness your team’s creative energies, improve processes, and kickstart collaboration, all while running a meeting online. 

With the proper remote design thinking tools and processes, you can facilitate meetings that encourage limitless brainstorming and provide you or your team with a way to collect and test their ideas. 

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The Role of a Remote Facilitator

Remote facilitators face the unique challenge of hosting engaging sessions online. Whether you’ve facilitated remote sessions before or you’re new to the role, it’s important to fully understand what your job entails to see how you can strengthen your skills. As a facilitator, it’s your responsibility to manage the discussion, encourage ideation from each participant, and find buy-in for your desired outcomes. 

When it comes to running remote sessions, facilitators must have a clear understanding of curating, managing, and facilitating “group processes.” This means that you’ll assess how your group functions throughout the meeting, bolster their understanding of design thinking and refine their approach to problem-solving.

Design Thinking Facilitation Tips

As you take on the task of remote facilitation, it’s essential to have a clearly-defined structure. A properly planned design thinking session requires the facilitator to identify the group’s deliverables and the best way to make sure those deliverables are achieved.

When preparing for a remote design thinking session, be sure to: 

Plan the Structure

Well-facilitated sessions have a clear and concise structure. Whether you have a small or large group, ironing out a structured process is the best way to ensure everyone participates, generates ideas, and achieves the desired goals. 

Create the Agenda

The agenda is the written format of what will occur in the meeting.

As you put your agenda together consider the following:

• The order you’ll present topics
• Icebreakers and activities to encourage discussion and conversation
• Prioritizing issues to reach consensus 
• Time allocation
• Organizing break-out groups
• Selecting next action steps 
• Closing the meeting 

Control the Event

In addition to pinpointing the process and the agenda, the next step in expert facilitation is to understand your direction in guiding and controlling the session. 

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Gain more control by:

• Sharing the ground rules
• Setting the scene/environment: make sure everyone understands their roles
• Encouraging the flow of conversation with appropriate icebreakers
• Keep the energy going to keep people focused
• Listen, include, engage, and actively listen to ensure all participants are participating
• Monitor checkpoints to stay on top of the agenda. Tell participants what achievements have been made and summarize to identify the next steps

Record and Take Action

Facilitators are also responsible for recording information from the session, sharing the data, and ensuring they are actioned. Record outputs successfully by understanding what needs to be recorded and delegating the role to someone. Moreover, ensure all participants can see, hear, and understand the information.

A note-taker can be a helpful addition to help keep the group on task. Likewise, take photos and screenshots of your brainstorming notes or use whiteboard apps like Mural. 

Reflect and Improve

It’s essential to reflect on your performance following a design thinking session. Consider asking for feedback or enrolling in a Magical Meetings Workshop to improve your skills and process for your future sessions.

Remote Design Thinking Tools

Remote design thinking tools are essential to running a design thinking session. Facilitators use these tools to ensure that meetings are run effectively and productively. With the right tools, facilitators and their teams can refine their processes, generate new ideas, develop user research, and arrive at the most appropriate solutions. 

The right remote design thinking tools help to organize the entire process. Whether you need tools to refine the agenda or manage all team members remotely, the right tools will help you do so. 

If you’re running a design thinking meeting, consider the following tools for each phase of the session:

1. Empathize: The team must relate to the end-users’ needs.

The best tools:

• Typeform 
• Creately

2. Define: The team must decide how to define and solve the problem. 

The best tools:

• Smaply 
• Userforge

3. Ideation: The ideation phase involves creative brainstorming where team members sketch their ideas and share their designs. 

The best tools:

• SessionLab
• Stormboard
• IdeaFlip

4. Prototype: The team will work on prototypes to create basic versions of the product. 

• Boords 
• POP

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5. Test: The testing phase tests the prototypes with your end-user. Ultimately, this phase will lead to a viable product and a launch-ready item. 

• UserTesting 
• HotJar
• PingPong

The best remote design thinking tools for the entire process:

• Zoom
• Sprintbase
• InVision
• Mural
• Miro

Learn to Run Magical Meetings

If your meetings need more purpose or passion, it’s time to redesign the way you gather. The Voltage Control Magical Meetings Workshop introduces the most essential remote design thinking tools and skills to give you the power to lead a truly magical meeting.

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Though many people associate design thinking with the role of the designer, experience in design isn’t a prerequisite. Anyone can use design methodology to host transformative design sprints. 

In this article, we’ll discuss the following topics:

• Design Thinking Benefits Everyone
• What Are Design Sprints?
• Who Runs Design Sprints? 
• What Do Design Sprint Facilitators Do?
• The Power of Expert Facilitation
• What it Takes to Be a Facilitator 
• Facilitator Certification Programs
• Facilitation Certification and Beyond

Design Thinking Benefits Everyone

Design thinking is at the core of any design sprint and centers around prioritizing the needs of the end-user. Just as design sprints aren’t solely for designers, design thinking is one methodology that benefits everyone. 

71% of companies report that design thinking improved their working culture while 69% share that the methodology accelerated their innovation processes. 

Ultimately, design thinking is a framework, not a form of design. Whether you’re an actual designer or you’re a member of the c-suite, applying design thinking in the workplace will have incredible benefits for your business. Everyone can learn design thinking and apply this approach by running a design sprint. 

What Are Design Sprints?

Design sprints are a five-day process designed to answer critical questions through design, ideation, prototyping, and testing. In a design sprint, facilitators aim to merge business strategy, behavior science, innovation, and design thinking into one innovative process.
The design sprint originated in 2010 as Jake Knapp’s brainchild. Knapp was Inspired by Google’s product development culture, IDEO design thinking workshops, and similar innovative ideas from industry leaders. In 2012, he brought the design sprint process to Google Ventures and the team continues to refine the process further.

Who Runs Design Sprints? 

While design sprints quickly gained popularity with startups and tech companies, businesses of any industry and size run design sprints as well. Design sprints are an excellent solution for brands searching to develop a digital product or looking to solve complex problems. 

Jake Knapp shares, “When we talk to startups about sprints, we encourage them to go after their most important problem. Running a sprint requires a lot of energy and focus. Don’t go for the small win, or the nice-to-have project, because people won’t bring their best efforts. They probably won’t even clear their schedules in the first place.”  

Design sprints are ideal for companies with a desire to reduce their invested resources and accelerate learning as they generate and explore new ideas and concepts. These sprints help improve design and development as they jumpstart an innovative and fast-paced environment where results are guaranteed. 

What Do Design Sprint Facilitators Do?

A design sprint facilitator must guide their team through the sprint’s 5-phase process as they manage the dynamics of the group. Facilitators of the most effective design sprints are experts in design thinking and understand what it takes to lead their team to success. 

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It takes a confident and highly motivated facilitator to navigate the complex process of a design sprint. The most effective design sprint facilitators have the necessary knowledge and the capacity to share their expertise with others in the intense and fast-paced environment of a sprint.

Most design sprint facilitators aren’t designers. Ideal design sprint facilitators often have the following roles:

• Strategists
• Project Managers
• Product Managers
• Agile Coaches
• UX Leads
• Innovation Managers
• UX Designers 
• Design Thinkers
• Workshop Facilitators 

Expert facilitation starts with the desire to champion design thinking and spearhead the innovative process of the sprint. Interested in improving your facilitation skills? With a facilitator certification, anyone can hone their facilitation skills and run game-changing design sprints on their own. 

The Power of Expert Facilitation

The power of the design sprint lies in the expertise of the facilitator. In a fast-paced environment like a design sprint, it’s crucial to have a facilitator that can pull the best results out of their team, keep the group on track, and generate the intended deliverables in the available time frame. 

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Good design sprint facilitation boils down to three essentials:

• The capability to encourage synergy while leading a team to effective outcomes
• The capacity to adapt and iterate
• The ability to engender creativity in others 

When preparing to lead a design sprint, facilitators should strive to:

• Align all participants to solve a problem 
• Avoid delays while decreasing time to market
• Encourage rapid prototyping and testing of a solution

What it Takes to Be a Design Sprint Facilitator 

Design sprints hinge on the overarching question: What is the human need behind my process, method, service, or product? As such, becoming a better facilitator starts with learning the essentials of the process and a keen understanding of the five phases of a sprint:

1. Empathize: Facilitators share the perspective of their target consumer, customer, and audience to address the problem 
2. Define: Define the problem with a human-centered, tangible statement 
3. Ideate: Brainstorm to generate as many ideas as possible around this data
4. Prototype: Experiment and prototype possible solutions to best solve the problem
5. Test: Refine ideas by testing to create the most appropriate solution

In addition to understanding the design sprint process, facilitators know how best to prepare for design sprints. Ahead of a five-day sprint, facilitators will identify the most cohesive agenda, the best tools for the job, and the proper environment for the session. 

Facilitators that are serious about executing effective design sprints should explore design sprint facilitator certification to take their skills to the next level. 

Facilitator Certification Programs

The best way to equip yourself with the knowledge, tools, and confidence required to lead successful sprints is through a facilitator certification program. 

Voltage Control’s Facilitator Program aligns IAF (International Association of Facilitators) competencies to provide participants with opportunities to practice, earn feedback, and learn the skills required to lead next-level sprints for your clients or company. 

In the facilitator certification program, you’ll have the opportunity to:

• Cultivate a professional facilitator identity
• Reflect on areas of strength and opportunities to grow
• Implement the most appropriate facilitating approaches and methods
• Select the best tools and methods for your needs

Following a design sprint facilitator certification course, you’ll earn certificates of completion, ultimately receiving full certification once all courses are complete. 

Facilitation Certification and Beyond

While facilitation itself is fairly simple, applying design methodology in the most productive ways takes practice. Voltage Control’s facilitator certification program features the following:

• Facilitation Foundations
  • This is an introduction to facilitation core competencies. Instructors model various facilitation methods to allow learners the opportunity to practice

• Facilitation Electives
  • Elective courses allow for additional exploration and application in key focus areas 

• Facilitation Capstone
  • Course members will create a professional facilitator portfolio to show competency in foundation areas and identify a plan for continued long-term growth 

All successful design sprints begin with a confident facilitator that understands design methodology and possesses the skills for expert facilitation. Becoming a better facilitator starts with a facilitation program that will give you the practice and training you need to strengthen your skills.

Become a better facilitator today! Sign up to get more information about the Voltage facilitator certification program!

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What What comes to mind when you hear or see “design thinking?” The cognitive, strategic, and workable processes used to develop design concepts are not left to just designers and design teams. At its core, design thinking is a process used for creative problem-solving. When applied to the business world, design thinking has the power to shape and drive innovation. And it works. That’s why many large corporations have instilled the strategic mindset to help evolve their businesses. From IBM and MassMutual to Nike and Airbnb, many successful mainstream companies have heavily profited from the use of this methodology.

What Is Design Thinking

“What is design thinking?” returns hundreds of articles discussing design methodology and its significance in the working world. Much more than a buzzword, design thinking is a well-structured business concept that prioritizes people and champions empathy in the workplace. 

A study from Adobe found that companies that encourage creativity are 3.5 times more likely to outperform the competition about revenue growth. Salesforce incorporated design thinking in their sales team discovery process and found a 100% increase in revenue.

The Approach In the Workplace

So, what is design thinking, and how do you use it? Let’s break it down. Overall, a design thinking approach minimizes uncertainty and reduces the risk of innovation. At the core of design thinking is the human-centric methodology that asks the question, “What’s the human need behind this product/method/process/service?” 

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Ultimately, design thinking is the fusion of what is desirable (from a human perspective), technologically achievable, and economically feasible. It helps to consider all parts of a problem or challenge to understand it holistically, steering projects clear of ambiguity and uncertainty. This approach encourages businesses to focus their efforts on the end-user. Adopting a design-centered approach allows companies to better understand their clients and meet the needs of their target audiences.

The first step in understanding “what is design thinking?” is to identify the problem at hand. Whether the problem is unexpected or a planned innovation, pinpointing the “what” is the crucial first step. From there, the methodology leads teams to understand the “why,” “how,” and “what’s next” in the innovation process, which allows them to create the best possible outcome.

The Five Stages of Design Thinking

1. Empathize

The first stage of the design process is to empathize with the end-user by understanding the perspective of the target audience/customer/consumer to identify and address the problem at hand. It is also a crucial step in the process to clearly understand and work with team members to strengthen team dynamics and overall performance to meet a common goal. This stage is all about gathering as much information as possible to prepare for development in the next step.

To do this, design thinkers are encouraged to cast aside all assumptions (because assumptions can stifle innovation) about the problem, the consumers, and the world at large. This allows them to consider any possibilities about the customers and their needs objectively.

2. Define

Putting together all of the information gathered in the first stage, the next step is to define the problem. Careful analysis of observations made will be synthesized to pinpoint the core problem that needs to be addressed. The goal is to convert the defined problem into a tangible, human-centered statement, rather than focusing on technology, monetary returns, or specifics of a product.

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3. Ideate

In the third stage, information has been gathered, a problem has been clearly defined, and now it’s time to generate ideas around this data. How can you and your team think outside of the box to create alternative solutions to the issue you’ve identified? Proper ideation begins with a clear understanding of your target audience and the ins and outs of the problem. 

As such, the ideation phase consists of brainstorming. Your team will collect as many ideas as possible at the start so that by the end, the team can investigate and test them.

4. Prototype

It’s time to experiment! During the prototyping phase, your team will identify through trial and error which of the possible solutions can best solve the primary problem(s). This typically will include scaled-down versions of the products or systems in question, which allows for proper investigation of the generated solutions.

5. Test

All of the work and information come together when testing the product in the final stage. It’s important to note that this is still an interactive stage. Often, testing the product leads to redefining problems/solutions and a better understanding of the consumer. This stage allows for all details to be flushed out and refined to create the best solution possible.

The Benefits Are Plentiful

The benefits of design thinking are plentiful. From improving team dynamics and productivity to reducing the cost of innovation and getting ahead of competitors, the methodology is a proven working process to create successful change. Just look at the economic impact design thinking has had on IBM. The company reported that the implementation of design thinking has increased its team efficiency by 75%, and it experienced a 301% return on its investment. 

As stated in the IBM Design Thinking Field Guide, “Our approach is to apply design thinking at the speed and scale the modern enterprise demands. It’s a framework for teaming and action. It helps our teams not only form intent but deliver outcomes — outcomes that advance the state of the art and improve the lives of the people they serve.”

How to Implement And Create Successful Change

Experts offer Design Thinking Workshops to help teams navigate the process and create successful change. This leadership is imperative, as design thinking is far from a linear path.

As IDEO founder David Kelley explains it, “it’s a big mass of looping back to different places in the process.”

Once design thinking skills are learned, business leaders can incorporate them into team management to encourage a healthy, sustainable dynamic. This allows businesses to continuously question their products and practices, helping them to generate solutions in the most productive environment possible. Having a critical eye to question what needs to be done for employees to do their best work, how to ensure thought diversity to encourage creative and critical thinking, and how to empower employees to take action when necessary is imperative to maintaining a strong relationship with ongoing innovation–either for products and services or within the company culture.

“The main tenant of design thinking is empathy for the people you’re trying to design for. Leadership is the same thing–building empathy for the people you’re entrusted to help.” -David Kelley, Founder of IDEO.

Interested in learning more about design thinking and how you can adopt this methodology? At Voltage Control, we’re happy to help. Contact us to learn more about the design thinking process and how to incorporate design methodology into your company culture. 

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