Design Thinking + Improv: Sexy Bedfellows
I’m an improviser not a designer.
Luckily, there a ton of amazing resources on the interweb to wrap my head around design thinking like Stanford’s D.School (where the above image is from), and Design Gym based in NYC. The more I read, the more I realized that the design world and the improv world have much in common.
EMPATHIZE
Design Thinking (DT) — Find out who your audience is and what they care about
Improv — Find out who your character is and what they care about
DEFINE
DT — Establish a point of view based on your audience needs/wants
Improv — Establish a point of view based on your characters needs/wants
IDEATE
DT — Come up with a ton of creative, wild, crazy solutions
Improv — Come up with a ton of creative, wild, crazy scenes or characters
PROTOTYPE
DT — Take one of the crazy ideas, develop it, and show it to others
Improv — Take one of the crazy ideas, develop it, see where the story goes (while performing in front of others)
TEST
DT — Share your prototyped idea with your original audience. What worked? What didn’t?
Improv — What worked? What didn’t? Who laughed at what, when? Overanalyze this in the “green room” (usually a closet) with your team with full knowledge that you’ll never perform that same show again ’cause it’s improv.
Tim Brown, CEO of IDEO (THE global design firm) believes that play leads us to better creative solutions. Improv is play…so why not use it to spark your design thinking?
Last week that’s exactly what we did in my workshop at Design Gym. Learn more and read my post on their blog: The Secret of Creativity here.
Originally published at www.lapertoso.com.
