IBM Design Thinking Flashcards
Everyone designs who
devises courses of action aimed at changing existing situations into preferred ones.” - Herbert Simon
Technique to get the team to understand the differences in perceptions
Draw a vase, then design a better way to experience flowers at home
Design thinking originated in the
late 1960’s- early 1970’s
Stanford d. school model of design thinking (steps)
Empathize Define Ideate Prototype Test
3 principles of Enterprise Design Thinking
Focus on users
Restless reinvention
Diverse Empowered Teams
The loop in EDT
Observe - Reflect - Make
The keys
Hills, Playbacks, Sponsor Users
Hills format
Who: Who is your user? Refer to them by name.
What: What will your user be able to do that they couldn’t before? Start with a verb and avoid solutions.
Wow: What differentiates you from the competition? This is measurable.
Playbacks are
story-based presentations that share insights, ideas, and updates to a user experience
Example of 5 Whys (just read)
Windsor Airline’s consistent flight delays are hurting the company’s bottom line.
Why might that be?
Because the majority of their flights don’t depart on time.
Why?
Because on average the gate isn’t locked 10 minutes before a flight’s scheduled takeoff.
Because the dispatchers don’t have the passenger data, which is legally required for the gate to close.
Because it’s not clear who’s on the final passenger list.
Because gate agents struggle to negotiate last-minute passenger changes.
Design thinking at its core is the process of
understanding the situation, recognizing where it can be improved, and then creating a better future for the people involved. This is the concept of moving from as-is, to to-be.
3 questions to ask about your users
Who are your users?
What do your users do on a daily basis?
What do they struggle with the most when they try to complete important tasks?
When you feel overwhelmed by a complex domain, try some of these methods to learn more:
Next time you review an idea, design, deliverable, etc. ask yourself what the user would think of it. Then go through the 5 Whys activity to dig deeper.
Have questions? Do some desk research (you can learn a lot about a person’s experience on the internet), or interview a stakeholder or subject matter expert to start to get a handle on things before talking to users.
A lot of users will document their experiences and share them online, which can be a great way to observe remotely. Think user-generated videos, review sites, and social media.
“The last best experience that anyone has anywhere,
becomes the minimum expectation for the experience they want everywhere.” - Bridget Van Kralingen
A brain-stretching exercise before ideation
Imagine a cube
paint one side red, other blue, other yellow
rotate, spin, throw around
unfold the cube
How do we have brilliant ideas?
By leaning into the absurd.
examples of misaligned team
Teams break out into solo work and end up duplicating efforts, or delivering things that aren’t useful.
Alternatively, teams might belabour a conversation when an agreement has already been reached, and get stuck spinning in circles.
ways to align the team
Next time you’re in a meeting where the conversation spins in circles, ask everyone to grab something to write with, visualize their thoughts, and then take turns sharing.
Next time you’re in a meeting where only one or two people share their opinion, hold a silent and anonymous voting session to expose everyone’s viewpoints.
specific moments where everyone on the team needs to be aligned:
Starting a new project or initiative.
Deciding as a team on a future experience for your users.
Reviewing progress as you deliver.
Starting a new project or initiative – answer questions like…
Who will be the users and stakeholders? What experience are we trying to improve and why?
Deciding as a team on a future experience for your users. Answer questions like:
What do we think our users need to be successful? How are we going to serve those needs?
Reviewing progress as you deliver. Answer questions like:
Do we successfully deliver value to our users? Are we still aligned as a team?
the first step to answering the question is ___
is knowing what questions to ask
What to do with the problem statement once you’ve refined it
as a source of research questions you want to answer
as a prompt for brainstorming ideas for solutions
as a discussion point for your whole team to align around a shared goal
When all else fails…
just start with Reflect.
Reflection means to pause, take a breath, and look at what’s known and unknown. From there, you can make a plan to move forward.
Reflect questions
Who are our users? Who are our stakeholders?
How do we define success?
What did we Observe or Make? What’s working and what isn’t?
What’s our plan? What’s on our roadmap?
Steps to doing Assumptions & Questions
First draw a cross with Assumptions and Questions logged
Then make a 2x2 grid with Risk and Certainty plotted on X/Y axes, move the A&Qs accordingly
Move the highest risk/uncertainty items to another reversed cross grid and diverge to find ways to figure out how to answer those questions
The best plans are created and owned by
the whole team—not just a design researcher.
A Research Plan is
an outline of learning goals and activities. You list your biggest questions along with how exactly you will answer those questions, when, and with whom.
A basic Research Plan has four components:
One or two high-level objectives: “What do we need to know?”
A timeline: “When will we do this work? When will we complete it?”
A short description of the types of people you’ll talk to: “Who represents our users?”
A list of research activities or methods: “How will we answer this?”
