Why Design thinking?
By definition, design thinking is a human centered technique to define what is desirable from a human point of view, with what is technologically feasible to create, balanced by what is economically viable for an organization.
Livia Pommerening, Holger Kuhn and I went through this approach with the non-profit organization we are supporting, as a part of the SAP Social Sabbatical. This was a rewarding experience, bringing all the players in our client org to the table to define a common problem statement, brainstorm in a solution space and to then ideate and quickly create a prototype for them.
When you are first introduced to your organization, it is important that you understand what they want you to focus on while you are there on your four week journey. But what is more important is that they understand and agree on what they would like you to focus on. It is not often the case that everyone in your host org will be on the same page as to why you are there. It then leads to mismatched expectations and this quote sums it up for me — “I can’t tell you the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everyone”.
Be clear who are the stakeholders. Align early with all of them to set the problem space. Be assertive for their time to help with this definition, because this will really help you down the road, both for expectation management as well as to avoid lost time and confusion every time you meet someone new in the org that expects you to solve their biggest problem first.If there is one thing you cannot lose, it's your time there. The problems are going to be complex, they did not ask 3 SAP top talent out to their site to help with anything simple. Manage your time preciously.
Ideal would be to invite the stakeholders that will sign off on your final deliverable to a 2 day workshop in week 1. Insist on week 1. Don’t be intimidated as you are dealing with CEOs and CFOs. Remember they asked for help and trust yourself that you will bring value to them, no matter if your qualifications exactly match their problem space.
Design thinking helps, especially if your background does not match their problem space. Because it is about creating a structure where you have them define their own problem space. You are just the facilitator. You are forcing a common understanding of the problem that is keeping them up at night. This is their world, their words, their understanding and you are there to neutrally facilitate, creatively draw out the deeper underlying causes and doggedly document that common understanding.
Most organizations want to get along smoothly and it is pleasantly surprising to see very open discussion on pain points across groups that sometimes haven’t just expressed their point of view or had a chance to explain their obstacles.
Exercise 1 for day 1: Have the stakeholders define the current state of their process, the ideal future they would like to have and then write down the barriers that are blocking them from growing out of their current state towards the desired future. 6–8 hrs on day 1 of the DT workshop is recommended for this, but we could only get 2 hrs and it was still valuable because we were already speaking to stakeholders 1:1 beforehand.
Next, do some homework to cluster their input in all 3 areas “current, future, barriers” and sum up their top 3 barriers that can be solved, either by process or technology or mindset shift or other feasible options. Separate out the problems that are not in their sphere of influence, not very productive to deep dive into them if you feel there cannot be much value add in your short time there. Be also a bit selfish in steering towards a barrier you actually feel fits your team’s strengths and expertise. It may not be their biggest barrier, but contributing to ideation of removing even one of their barriers with the skillset you bring to the table will bring out an impact they cannot get within their own organization.
Exercise 2 for day 1:It is also useful to create some user journeys for the key problem they want to solve. Here is an example of a user journey we created with a simple day to day problem. The personas are defined to the left. The main phases of that user journey are defined and the steps. Then the positive and negative feelings during that step are captured and lastly some opportunities to resolve the negative feelings. Such a workflow and getting feedback on their negative feelings at each step of their process will help narrow down where to go with ideation in the solution space for the day 2.
Exercise 1 for day 2: With the 3 prioritized barriers as well as the feelings/opportunities input, head into Day 2 of the workshop where the focus should be ideation and prototype creation in the solution space for the problem you defined. It is useful to stay anchored to one persona for every discussion. If they don’t have personas defined, do this for them to capture their persona including job responsibilities, skill set, key pain points etc. 1:1 interviews help nail the important personas for a workflow.
Start with ideating around the barriers — have all the workshop participants ideate on resolving barriers by adding out of the box thoughts on how to solve that barrier, including the opportunities listed in the user journey exercise for the steps with most painpoints. No boundaries — assuming unlimited money, resources, expertise etc. This might take an hr or even more. Once everyone has added their ideas, use some time to have all participants read all the ideas on the board that everyone posted and vote on their top 3 ideas that they think will resolve critical barriers and are still reasonably achievable.
Exercise 2 for day 2: ExTake the top 3 voted ideas to storyboarding — Imagine that idea is implemented and create a narrative structure in terms of a specific persona how it solves the near term pain points and the long term ones too. We used the Freitags Pyramid as given below
Exercise 3 for day 2: This can also be done post workshop as by now, you might feel like you are drinking out of a fire hose. Stop where you are not able to engage any longer.
For this step, either via paper prototype or via story telling boards or other prototype creators like Balsamiq or napkin, start drawing together their Future Vision as a story board. If you are not skilled in this area, getting a design thinking coach in pre-work phase also and helping you virtually facilitate it during your stay on site is also a very valid option.If this problem space and ideation is journey is done early, you have your focus set and agreed. Find areas where you can contribute for that, be it research, proposal, reaching out to network contacts or any other creative approaches.
I know this turned out to be a very long post. From our experience, we were overwhelmed at the beginning and needed some practise but with good examples and a good design thinking coach to help, but this exercise was well worth it.
