How to inspire your team away from funnel vision when doing design concepts

Do you ever get that moment in a project where you realise some participants go on and on about the same solution in an ideation session?

It is normal to dive straight into a solution driven mind-set even if the entire purpose of the meeting is set out to be discovering the problem statement, to brainstorm as many potential solution as possible. At the time we often delve straight into solution-mode hoping to get into a resolution for the problem as soon as possible. That said, it is often proven that one solution derived without understanding the problem holistically often lead to wrong solutioning that lead to inefficiency in time and effort costed within the project.

To avoid this, in this article I share my story on how I tackle this mentality with my team mates by catering a few workshop session with the help of some Miro boards I’ve created (You can find the Miro board links here) that helped my team mates drive themselves from that single solution and open their minds to other possibilities.

Let me elaborate.

Here is where my story began

So I was the lead designer in a project where we were to design and develop a product that was to be a proof of concept. The project had a short timeframe for it needed to get in the hands of the users as soon as possible to track behaviour change. So we needed to identify what the product required to do in its core in its bare minimum functionality. Sounds like a plan, right?

And it was! We had complete alignment as a team. But from the get-go, I started noticing that one of the team members was very prescriptive regarding what MVP should be, how the user journey should flow, and how certain functionalities should be interacted with while we were at the very early stages of the project. So here comes my first tip:

Keep your eyes open for the signs!

And there are always signs! First and foremost, listen to how your team engages with the project.

It is usual for people to be stuck on an idea or be solution-driven. I find myself doing this time and time again, too. If you think a solution is correct, you will push for it. And the more and more you become aware of that behaviour, the more you become aware of the signs of people stuck in an idea.

I often observe myself and others become over-prescriptive on a solution too early into the project. You know, the classic scenario where that one person in the room already has a flow ready in mind… and we don’t even know what the user needs are for that particular topic… yeah…

Watch for that single idea take over the session…

And you will find that if a single idea gets discussed further around the table, more people will get on board in developing this idea without necessarily consulting other options that could lead to a potentially better solution or a more simplistic approach. So there are ways where you can start taking action in that situation.

You can lead the participants in the session to ideate other options…

You can stop the people in the room to start running solutions and explore the problem space first…

Or you can run workshops!

The reason why I love workshops

I find workshops to be the equalising mediums where their collaborative nature allows multiple people to freely share their ideas on an open-for-all table.

Instead of a traditional meeting where only a few people are vocal about a particular solution, well-curated workshops ensure more people have an input on the matter, and every idea has an equal weight.

But which workshop to choose?

In my scenario, I started my ideation sessions with a user flow workshop where the participants would draw out their desired flow for a particular functionality we were to develop.

A snippet from the said workshop template, which you can access on the Miro Board here

All the participants would build a user flow using the MVP functionalities we aligned on earlier in the workshop. This exercise allowed all the members on the table to express their expectations on how the functionality would/should work.

Later on, I would ask the participants to vote their favourite aspects on each others’ flows which we would then merge into an aligned flow.

All was well until…

After deciding on the user flow, I encouraged the participants to do a sketching exercise where all the participants would sketch out the interactions they would expect this functionality to include.

This exercise is an excellent way to get the other disciplines to start thinking creatively. Allowing them to get some level of ownership in the project due to their creative input also lets you see the other participants’ expectations of the UX/UI direction in the project. These insights you gather in this session could aid your decision-making process when starting your tactical design journey.

Here is the Miro Board I’ve created for the sketching exercise.

Side note: make sure when you are conducting a sketching exercise, you’re communicating the purpose of the activity to your participants because, for some, sketching is a daunting task, and they need all the encouragement they can get.

My participants received the exercise well!

All the participants were very enthused to share their sketches and even started collaborating. As a designer, it was very encouraging to see how people began to talk with each other (even if it was a small workshop) during the sketching process. Once the sketching time was up, it was time to share back the sketches. And this is when I came to realise…

… that one participant was still utilising the pre-existing wireframes and user-flows throughout the exercises I was moderating!

Push to look outside of the box!

You may ask, “So what? What’s wrong with them bringing existing wireframes and flows into the workshop?”

Well, it isn’t wrong as per se. However, it is counterintuitive. And there are multiple reasons for it:

1. Workshops — especially ideation workshops — are designed to look outside the box. So any pre-existing works to bring into an ideation session will contain all the participants to be within the box.
2. Bringing pre-existing frameworks into workshops will encourage others to get on board with the existing solutions, which is the opposite effect we want to achieve in a workshop.
3. It could hush up all the other participants from contributing to the workshop since its “existing” nature.
4. “It is a solution that is pre-discovered. So why explore more” mentality that is the opposite mentality to bring to a workshop.

Remember, the whole purpose for me kickstarting these workshops was to discourage the meeting effect of one person leading with a solution to a problem statement and all the others agreeing and building upon it.

So I needed to develop a strategy to lead the participant from the pre-existing wireframes into something more.

I needed to encourage them to look outside of the box.

The beauty of crazy-eights exercise

Crazy-eights is a creative workshop exercise forcing the participants to ideate eight different solutions in a short period rapidly. The whole point of this exercise is to encourage people not to get caught up in the idea. Moreover, this exercise’s time constraints enable the person away from the funnel vision as they get further away from their initial concept.

This exercise was precisely what I needed to encourage my team from the pre-existing funnel vision.

So I did exactly that!

Here is the Miro board I’ve created to curate this workshop.

You’d be happy to know that it worked like a charm. As predicted, the first concept the participant drew onto the board was the pre-existing wireframe. But further on in the exercise, the participant was encouraged to let go of the initial idea and start to truly ideate.

So what did I learn from this?

1. It is essential to step away from the meeting mentality and ensure that the participants have an equal platform where all their voices are heard. A way to achieve this is to engage them in a workshop.
2. Getting them to be creative helps the designer to understand the participant's mental framework they have on the particular project.
3. Ensure to keep an eye out for the signs of specific solutions and funnel vision in your participants. It is essential to have an open mind when attending a workshop.
4. If there are signs of funnel vision in a creative workshop, ensure to break that early on in the project. Also, make sure you are curating exercises that encourage that. Crazy eights are great for this!
5. Make sure to have fun! All my participants were looking forward to my next design workshop, ready to get creative with the project.

Thank you for being so interested!