So You Ran a Design Thinking Workshop. What’s Next?
Have you ever attended a design thinking workshop? If the answer is yes, then there is a high chance you left the session feeling like this...
Super excited to apply your learning and make a difference in your organisation. One week passes and the feeling turns into this...
The rise and fall - how and why does this happen?
Design Thinking is not a new concept but there are still many large companies that are yet to embrace this modern day mindset and methodology. To put it simply, design thinking is a human-centred approach to problem-solving. Sadly, there is a fundamental problem that exists - management often see it as the solution to every problem in the organisation. After teams are upskilled in design thinking, management get hungry for immediate results but are unwilling to invest further until they see them. These factors contribute to a lack of change in organisations and unfortunately a slow death for the design thinking journey.
Luckily, there are ways that you can ensure the journey continues. Here are 8 ways that your organisation can start to embed Design Thinking and get on the path to seeing results.
Take your learnings and get moving!
Start to actually apply what you have learned in a focused environment. Get teams together and spend 1-5 days tackling a real business problem using the end to end design thinking methodology (Empathise, Define, Ideate, Prototype, Test).
Important note: Make sure you don’t get sucked into business as usual during the Design Sprint.
A design sprint will allow employees to get hands on experience with tools and techniques and allow them to build out a solution that can be pitched to leadership. Much like when startups pitch to investors, employees need to approach management like they are pitching their own start-up. Often times getting buy-in for your idea is just as important as having one.
“There’s no shortage of remarkable ideas, what’s missing is the will to execute them.”
- Seth Godin
Learning design thinking is the easy part - now what?
Try taking your idea and low fidelity prototype developed and apply the lean startup. Design thinking is about ideation, low fidelity prototypes and starting the journey of product/market fit. The lean startup allows you to take your idea/solution to the next level by focusing on:
To simplify, design thinking helps us come up with better ideas and the lean startup helps us turn those ideas into business models that work.
The lean startup is used to turn proposed solutions into business models, underpinned by assumptions that are rapidly tested with actual customers to separate truth from fiction, learn and iterate towards product market fit. It provides the framework to better understand the elements of an idea including distribution channels, marketing channels, cost structure and revenue models.
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The WorkFlow podcast is hosted by Steve Glaveski with a mission to help you unlock your potential to do more great work in far less time, whether you're working as part of a team or flying solo, and to set you up for a richer life.
This guide provides an overview of the five key stages of design thinking, from empathy through to test. Find out how to apply the approach and start innovating at your organisation.
To help you avoid stepping into these all too common pitfalls, we’ve reflected on our five years as an organization working on corporate innovation programs across the globe, and have prepared 100 DOs and DON’Ts.
This guide provides an overview of the five key stages of design thinking, from empathy through to test. Find out how to apply the approach and start innovating at your organisation.
