Design Thinking:What Next?

For VBSR Spring Conference Workshop Attendees

1. Find Someone Who Needs to Solve a Problem – This could be anyone inside or outside your organization. A customer, for example. Or a co-worker from a different department. Problems and opportunities abound around us. For a design thinker, you have the chance to help someone else. That’s a powerful place to stand from.

At work, find a problem to solve, one that isn’t too big, but that still feels important and interesting.

2. Create a Mini-Design Team – The best design and innovation needs collaboration and divergent thinking. Find a buddy or two in your organization to work together with. It will make your challenge more fun and impactful when you don’t do it alone.

3. Talk With People – Use your empathy muscles to dig into what matters, especially those who the problem impacts. What are they really trying to do? Watch them, if you can, to see how they might be using the thing you’re trying to change.

When you talk to them, dig in and use the “5 Whys”: keep asking them why to really get to the bottom of what they really need.

4. Frame and Reframe the Problem - Take what you’ve learned and make it into the problem statement – the thing you’re going to solve. Start with “How might we…” and then add your opportunity.

Don’t stop there, though. Keep using the “5 Whys” here too, to reframe the problem into something that’s really worth solving.

5. Make An Idea Wall – Solve the problem with lots of ideas. Clean off a wall in your office and keep putting up sticky notes with ideas. Group and regroup them. See what resonates. Work with your buddy and build off of one another’s ideas.

Keep asking yourself “What IF we…” to really zoom your thinking.

6. Prototype and Test – Make a small prototype of your best ideas and bring it back to the person whose problem you’re solving. If it’s a customer, share it with your team.

Let them play with it or test it. Start imagining how you might integrate this solution into your organization.

Want to learn more?You can take a 7-week online human-centered design course with Acumen and Ideo.org http://plusacumen.org/courses/hcd-for-social-innovation/

Great reading here about insights and innovation

http://designthinking.ideo.comhttp://designmind.frogdesign.com/blog/http://continuuminnovation.com/insights/