Design Thinking is an endurance sport … so be prepared for a TOUR de FORCE ;)

What does faciltiating a Design Thinking workshop and being an athlete have in common? You need a lot of stamina! Be prepared for a TOUR de FORCE.

There is no way back. You have been looking forward to this moment for quite some time. All the preparation, hours of hard training, counting down the days till the start … a last check of the equipment early in the morning, trying to focus and calm yourself down … and here you are: standing at the starting line, the race you have been trained for is about to begin in a few moments … no flight, no freeze — It’s time to bring your A-Game. As Seneca, the Roman philosopher put it, “Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.”
Ten,
nine,
eight,
seven,
six,
five …
a rush of adrenaline running through your veins …
baaam, off we go!

I love those moments before the start of a big event. Total focus, a clear goal in mind, and surrounded by people who share the same enthusiasm. You can feel it, there’s something in the air — and you know what? I found something comparable in my professional career as a design thinker. Every Design Thinking workshop produces a rush of adrenaline. There are always new people and a new dynamic. Always a blank piece of paper and a new challenge to be solved. The moment to trust that your preparation leads to success, visuals up on the wall, participants approaching the workshop room. And off we go!

Don’t take it easy like a nap

About 10 years ago, the first time I came in touch with Design Thinking, I thought: “Excellent! This is a process to solve pretty much any challenge in a team of T-shaped individuals — I can do that!”

But when a two-day Design Thinking workshop was scheduled and there was no backing down, it gave me a few sleepless nights. As an industrial designer (the mothership of Design Thinking itself) with considerable experience in the fields of mobility, retail and sporting goods, I was used to coming up with concepts and ideas in my own style, applying creativity with gut feeling. But running and facilitating a workshop with a group full of non-designers (business people and IT guys) is a different story. Needless to say, the first workshop wasn’t a “win the race experience” — neither for the participants, nor for me. As a lifelong learner, I took on the challenge, rolled up my sleeves, stepped back and made up my mind to find an answer to the following question:

What is crucial to make a workshop a success, once it has started?

First of all, like in sports: if you want to get most out of each player, form a strong team, articulate the goals and be clear about the expectations. Second, create a protected space. Initially, we set the tone by removing any hierarchies — “leave titles at the door” is the principle we follow. (Doing this in a german work environment can already be a challenge, a big step out of the comfort zone.) It really requires quite a bit of trust and confidence. Add some humor to the introduction round, share something surprising about yourself, be open — it will pay off and you will quickly become part of a powerful team. What characterizes a powerful team? It’s hard to describe, but you immediately can sense it. It is like in a Tour de France team time trial stage. In a high-performing team, the individuals seem to magically merge into a bigger entity, like a set of gears falling into place.

Care for your team

Once the team is up and running, it’s essential to anticipate the difficult moments, the make- or break-moments. Honestly, the Design Thinking process often feels like a rollercoaster. In my first workshop the team rushed full speed from “uninformed optimism” into a moment of crisis. In order to be innovative, you have to accept the mess and fuzziness that goes along with being open and explorative. Even if you already invested a lot of time and effort in a different direction. Otherwise, you run the risk of playing it safe and only coming up with obvious ideas. In order to be really innovative, it is essential to sustain and embrace ambiguity, even if it makes the participants nervous. This nervousness and feeling of being lost can be contagious. For the moderator it is absolutely necessary to stay calm and remain in the drives seat! You will need to keep your wits about you and to constantly check if the participants are on track and that the atmosphere is still optimistic and friendly. In case you detect a problem or a potential “troublemaker”, immediately solve the issue and reintegrate her/him so they can contribute to the workshop. This has a lot of similarities to race-time: Anticipation and ambiguity, constantly checking what is happening around you, listening to your gut feeling, while striving to perform at your optimum. This is what makes a workshop really demanding. And that is the reason why we always conduct workshops in teams of two.

For me, the moment of truth in a workshop is when you bring all the findings together, connect all those invisible dots to sharpen what a customer’s unarticulated needs and desires really are. This phase takes up a lot of energy. Participants can feel exhausted and some may feel lost. At this point, a design skillset is extremely beneficial. Being able to discover, reflect, and visualize complex information in a simple, understandable way can give the team their second wind. Going deep and fast at the same time is crucial to keep up the energy for the steps that follow. Speed and momentum boost creativity. Like in cycling — you have to constantly move, or you will fall. In this sense, speed adds quality. This approach, just like in endurance sports, pushes the team of participants to shift borders, to leave the comfort zone, and discover new territories.

At the end of a workshop, you really feel like you’ve finished a race…sometimes you don’t even know what day or month of the year it is and barely even know your name — I’m glad we all wear nametags to remember ;)

But crossing the finish line does not mean it’s over — another race is soon to begin. The moderators sit together for a debriefing session to try to learn how we can further improve. This requires us to regain our energy and relax. The next step is to assemble visual documentation for the workshop — an artefact to remember, just like the trophy that helps you remember race day.

Make it fly

To sum it up, what are the ingredients to make a workshop fly once it is up and running?

• Invest in setting up a protected space to foster openness and trust
• Warm up the environment with the right music playlist (80s preferred ;)
• Form a team
• Be prepared for difficult moments and difficult participants — know what to do to solve those situations
• Always stay in the driver seat
• Regularly sync with your co-facilitator — are you still on the right track or does the agenda need adjustment?
• Anticipate, anticipate, anticipate
• Be prepared to guide the team through a moment of crisis
• Nurture an atmosphere where ideas can be sparked and grow. Don’t try to push this in one particular direction
• Be hard on timeboxing (if you don’t make the cut off time, you are out of the race ;)
• Treat every workshop as an opportunity to learn. Reflect right after the finish line with your team
• Always stay curious — even if you have done it a hundred times!

I think facilitating Design Thinking workshops is like an endurance sport — It’s up to you to turn the journey into a success. You are responsible for the process and the outcome. It takes effort, each workshop is different with its own set of hurdles to overcome. But once you help the group to succeed and reach a goal, it is like winning a race as a team. Celebrate. And then go for a ride.

This article is part of a series under the title “10 out of 100 — Learnings I wish I had known years before”. Get an overview here.