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Design Thinking

  

Design Thinking

 

Definition of DT

Design thinking has a “human-centred” core. Crafting together what’s Desirable from a human point of view with what is technologically Feasible and economically Viable

Design thinking is “Multidisciplinary

Design thinking is a way to get our team thinking creatively about our products and services from the customer's perspective. We'll look at how can we (Stakeholder(s)) help our team understand user issues, find creative solutions to the biggest issues, and build and test a prototype of how those solutions would look in our product(s). By following a set of techniques we get the best bits of the new feature design implemented quickly. 

A design thinking exercise brings the whole team together for an intensive planning process. This approach can save tons of time that the team would be spending later on in meetings, trying to describe things to each other. And it gives everyone in the team a great understanding of what you're building and why. 

The process of identifying an unmet customer need that we can build a product around. Then, using input from our potential customers, we'll create and test a Minimal Usable Feature of that product so that you can get feedback before you commit serious time and money to the development process.  Result of following this design thinking approach We're set up to develop and deliver a product that our customer(s) desired, commercially viable and technically feasible,  

Helps development team(s) through the whole process from concept to delivery by focussing on customer(s) / User(s) problems.

Aim to end the session with an actionable takeaway, not just some pretty design sketches.

 
We together  

We Together

 


Design think processes can be performed in one week intensively or it can go long if we think and feel it is necessary to understand user(s) issues and validate solutions. 

Stakeholders from every discipline should be involved in design doing exercise. Business, Engineering, Design, Research, Quality and Operations so on and ensure that all different perspectives and ideas are covered, there might be other stakeholders (Legal and other specialists) to sync up with though, not required in everyday sessions and information can be passed on and these stakeholders list is an indication of the breadth of experience we bring to the room and to obtain a constructive action plan to develop the product(s).

Design thinking helps every discipline get clearer about what their role will be, what tasks they need to perform and what type of support they'll need to provide as the project moves forward.

Dev, for instance, will find it easier to provide estimations to build the product. And that have more insight into why the interface is laid out in a particular way, or why as a team you decided to use one technology/tool over another. Businesses, on the other hand, will gain deep insight into customer needs. 

Operations take something completely different away. They begin to understand your staging requirements for the production environment. So they can work out how much capacity your product will need when it launches. And so it goes out as a collaboration activity, each individual brings their expertise and takes away critical information that helps them in their work. The idea is that we work as a team.

Design thinking can help the team(s) or organization:

  • Better understand the unmet needs of the people you’re creating for (customers, clients, consumers, users, etc...).
  • Reduce the risk associated with launching new ideas, products, and services.
  • Business requirements / Business case. / Technological factors
  • Work model approach
  • Implementation plan & Product Road map
  • Generate solutions that are revolutionary, not just incremental.
  • Learn and iterate faster.

(Workshop) Planning & Preparation

A design thinking workshop is a great way to define and solve problems fast. A successful workshop not only allows groups to build a shared understanding of the problem, and tap into each participant's knowledge to generate ideas and define solutions but also have fun, bond, break silos and take ownership of making this idea a reality.

Iteratively taking the Team through stages such as

Empathize, Define, Ideate, Prototype, and Validate.

Process

 

Start with introductions, a brief overview of objectives, and the Design thinking workshop agenda.

Objectives and scope are the first thing and critical to be defined before the workshop. The best way to get this answered is to run a preliminary interview with key Business stakeholders. Define key objectives and assumptions we may want to validate with the customers during the session.

 

Tracking

  • Planning time slots will help in staying on track during the workshop.
  • Better to schedule key and more complex workshop sessions in the first half of the day when people are fresh and have plenty of energy.
  • Not everyone vocal their ideas but we all have brilliant thoughts. Planning individual activities give space for everyone to express their thoughts in quiet thinking rather than loud brainstorming.
  • Choosing what will be on the agenda makes sure all activities come in a logical order. Make sure you start with the “Big picture” and gradually move to “details”, not the other way around
  • Always leave some buffer time. It’s not being lazy; it’s being intelligent.
  • Share objectives and agenda with stakeholders beforehand

We run 15 mins to have a logical wrap-up for previous exercises, time for questions, and an intro to the next activity. 

Identify the pain points: Validate with real users

We might have an idea for a product you want to build, but how do you know if it's the right idea?  Before you go ahead and start building, it's essential that you run a design thinking workshop and validate with the stakeholders you want to make a solution for.

Personas: An idea everyone can get behind

We want to focus on a couple of fictitious roles who we know are true users of the product. By giving them the attributes, we're looking for, but keeping them believable by referencing what we learned during our observations, we can give the team a good idea of whom they're developing for.  

Wireframe: The fastest way to test your ideas

We've come up with great ideas (Low fidelity wireframe) for how you can solve the problems you uncovered. Now it's time to show those ideas back to your potential customers to see how well you interpreted and solved their issues. 

Workable Plan

Of course, going from Design Thinking to an agile backlog or any other form of the implementation plan is the key output of the workshop, especially involving the whole team (Eng., Design & QA) members in the whole design thinking process, 

Another essential step is to define what exactly the team will build and in what order. It’s time to pull all that information together into one plan.

Now we'll create a road map that shows our desired future state of the implementation, and we use that map to determine feature priority in which we'll build each of the pieces that will make that projection happen. This road map becomes the basis for our project plan. You can use it to write agile stories or as input for pretty much any other planning and tracking process.

Closure
Close the workshop with a summary of the progress made and key insight that was discovered. Outline the next steps and let people know how those findings will be used.

Take away / Set the expectation(s)

Spend some time documenting and cleaning up all workshop discoveries that will not help or something for the future. Sharing this report with all participants will be a great way to set expectations. Try to highlight and surface the most important findings.