NOTE: The following blog post highlights the design thinking framework I developed & used for a recent workshop at my company. All confidential details have been appropriately masked to ensure privacy and sensitivity. Big thanks to my colleagues/mentors Michael Montmoril (Head of Design), Bernardo Arjonilla (Senior Product Designer), Product and Marketing teams for sharing all their valuable inputs in shaping this framework.
INTRO
In the realm of design thinking and problem-solving, my unwavering passion finds its true expression. Recently, I had the unique privilege of orchestrating a design thinking workshop, collaborating with key stakeholders to shape transformative ideas for a pivotal website. This blog unveils the intricacies of the framework I meticulously crafted, elucidating the journey, goals, and the rationale behind the chosen methodologies that propelled us towards meaningful outcomes.
At the heart of the blog post lies a systematic framework crafted to ease non-designers into a design thinking mindset through a step-by-step approach
MAIN GOALS
Revamp the web collaterals to reflect an extended value proposition covering the company's diverse offerings, including SaaS, managed services, financing/commodity services, and consulting.
Establish foundations for upcoming marketing endeavours, including marketing pillars, positioning, voice, and reusable content blocks.
Strategic Goals
Establish consensus on the customer life cycle, motivations, needs, and mental model.
Create alignment on the monetisation strategy, value propositions, and key offerings
Enhance comprehension of the competitive landscape, including offerings, positioning, and engagement strategies.
TYPE & PARTICIPANTS
Type: 1.5-day design thinking workshop - In person
Participants: Head of domain, Head of product, Head of data science, Head of engineering, Head of sales, Research head, Product managers & Product designers.
Methodology
I undertook the execution of the Crazy 8s activity with consideration for the allocated time slot within the workshop. The activities were strategically planned, taking into account the diverse backgrounds of the participants, with awareness that introducing a design activity abruptly might be overwhelming.
The systematic framework was designed to establish an environment conducive to non-designers, gently guiding them into a design thinking mindset through a step-by-step approach.
CONTEXT SETTING
The strategic goals were presented to the participants to bring the participants to a common consensus about the current standing of the product and the company.
STart of design thinking
GATHERING INSIGHTS & clustering
Following the context setting, the participants were encouraged to put down the insights they gathered in any random order which were then clustered into 4 broad topics. These topics were identified based on the main goal which is to define a communication strategy for the company's value proposition.
turning insights into hmw Questions
In my role as the workshop convenor, it was my responsibility to gradually transition the participants into an ideation mindset following the defining phase. To achieve this, we engaged in the 'How Might We' Activity, where participants explored key pain points identified during the define phase to formulate questions addressing each issue.
To enhance the relevance and streamline the 'How Might We?' questions, I developed a set of prompts. These prompts structured the HMW question into an action, a persona, and an outcome, simplifying the process for participants to formulate questions based on the insights they had gathered.
HMW CLUSTERING & DOT VOTING
The HMW activity brought out varied questions from the participants and were then clustered based on commonality. An anonymous dot voting process was carried out to pick 5 top HMW questions that can be addressed in the form of a design solution in the crazy 8s activity.
TRANSLATING PRODUCT RELATED INSIGHTS TO DESIGN ACTIVITY GOALS
Top 5 HMW questions were picked for ideation by dot voting exercise
Translating questions to visuals - challenge to non-designers
With the 'How Might We' (HMW) questions established, the subsequent challenge was to enable the participants in visualising their ideas. Even for seasoned designers, immediate visualisation of solutions proves to be a complex task. To provide visual references and guidance, we conducted a design inspiration session. During this session, we presented various examples of websites, both from competitors and non-competitors, aligning with core and generic ideas. This exercise aided participants in discerning how to articulate their solutions in a visual format.
INFORMATION SEQUENCING
The time-constrained nature of the Crazy 8's activity necessitates participants to quickly articulate ideas as visuals. However, insufficient preparation may lead to panic during the allocated 8 minutes, hindering effective idea translation. To mitigate this challenge, a pre-Crazy 8 activity was conducted. In this pre-activity called 'Information sequencing' , participants were once again constrained by time but were encouraged to document visual ideas as descriptive sentences. The pre-activity served to solidify participants' ideas, facilitating a smoother translation into visuals during the main activity.
PS: The image on the left is only for representation purpose it does not contain the actual outcomes from the workshop.
CRAZY 8'S, QUIET CONTEMPLATION & DOT VOTING
Two iterations of the Crazy 8's activity were conducted. In the first round, participants generated 5-8 divergent ideas within an 8-minute timeframe. Subsequently, through the process of dot voting, the selected ideas were systematically represented in a sequential website format during the second Crazy 8's session.
USER FLOW & INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE
Conclusively, four artefacts were determined as winners through dot voting bringing the workshop to an end. Subsequently, based on these selections, the user flows were delineated by the design team. This process involved identifying recurring patterns in the chosen sheets and contemplating the flows from a broader User Experience (UX) perspective.
