Design Thinking Workshop
Background + Problem
A million +1 sources exist on Design Thinking. I won’t get into that here. This project was about offering a Design Thinking framework in a hybrid-format to a group where tensions were somewhat high between two parties. The project sponsor was interested in a “new way” of looking at the same problem and was curious if Design Thinking could offer any insight. Personally, I don’t believe in magic bullets to problems and I give a lot of credence to what other Designers have to say about the pitfalls of this particular practice. However, in this particular situation, I agreed the framework seemed to fit.
In this scenario, there were people on the ground who were using hungry for data they believed should be available but found it was not. From others, they were being told the information they needed was at their fingertips, but this was not their experience and it impacted their day-to-day. The analogy was given, “I want to buy a Snickers bar but can’t look at my checking account to know if the money is there to cover it.” From those who controlled the data, they believed all data, metadata, and reports were transparent — anyone and everyone had access.
Communication efforts had failed previously. I was asked to facilitate a workshop with both groups simultaneously to dig deeper into the problem and solution.
Approach
As described above, the project sponsor and I were aligned on a Design Thinking approach. Never before had all parties gathered in a room to discuss the problem and talk about solutions in a collaborative fashion. While I felt some pressure to deal with the dynamics in the room well while also being remote, I also felt that being a third party gave me additional room to ask questions that may at times be difficult for others to ask.
We had a short timeline so I chose to skip final steps in the traditional framework focusing only on the first few (Empathize, Define, Ideate, and Prototype). There were approximately twelve people in the room.
Findings + Impact
The biggest issues identified were: multiple data sources and a lack of centralization, followed by data that is hard to interpret. After that, it was identified that the tools used are not user friendly, data is hard to find, and mistrust around data accuracy due to hazy inputs.
During the workshop, we focused on the two highly prioritized issues and used “How Might We” questions to ideate on potential solutions. I used a timer and for five minutes asked each person to come up with one idea every minute, then share their favorites. The team came up with twenty-five solutions by the end of the day to their biggest problems.
I was not embedded in the team so didn’t expect to be involved in follow-up actions. However, approximately two weeks later I was thrilled to see an email come across that a new report had been developed to help meet the needs of those on-the-ground.
