Category: Design Thinking

Prototyping – the quickest way to learn how bad your ideas really are!

Design Thinking, FeedbackPublished onUpdated on2 Comments on Prototyping – the quickest way to learn how bad your ideas really are!

Prototyping is all about the process of generating multiple versions of a solution so you can continually improve it.

Prototyping is one of the later stages of the design process and is normally folowed by a period of testing. You can make a prototype without testing it. This stage normally follows on from a time when you and your team have generated and filtered a range of ideas.

It would also be true to say that the sooner you are prototyping and testing the better as this often instigates new thinking quite quickly.

A different way of thinking about this stage is that prototyping is to engineer as many opportunities for feedback as you can. Feedback is the main reason anyone creates rough versions of anything. Rough and ready versions give us the chance to test and think about what works and what doesn’t. And to truly understand how bad our ideas are.

You have to remember that the only thing that is worse than a bad idea is one that has been isolated from feedback for too long.

Feedback is oxygen for your ideas. It will help them to grow and get stronger, starved of it and your ideas will get weaker.

When you create a rough prototype, first draft or early sketch you are using iteration to develop your creative ideas.

Often the first prototype you can create is the moment you describe your idea to someone else.

  • What if we…
  • Imagine that you…

Your FVP (first verbal prototype) is the kick to then begin representing your idea in a more tangible way.

I developed this little decision tree to help you and your students think through some ideas for prototyping.

Screenshot 2018 03 06 at 10.27.15 AM

A Visual Prototype will be one that focuses on the look (and feel) of the product, but it will not function. You will likely focus on:

  • Sketches and illustrations
  • Storyboarding a short video
  • Digital / paper wireframes
  • Creating the packaging for your product
  • Making an advert for your service
  • Photo sequence for a new service
  • On-the-shelf mockup (placing your new packaging alongside competitors in a real store)

A Functional Prototype will be one that focuses on showing how something will work, even in a rudimentary way. The visual quality will be ignored.

  • 3D printing
  • Paper prototype and mockup
  • App mockup
  • PPT or Google Slides for a website mockup
  • Bodystorming a service (using roleplay to act it out)
  • Cardboard life scale mockup

You might also explore the following reflection promtpts to help you make the most of the prototyping process.

  1. Which type of prototype is most feasible / useful in the time you have?
  2. Why is your choice appropriate for the solution you are exploring?
  3. What resources and support will you need to build your prototype?
  4. Who are you testing your prototype on?
  5. What specific aspects of your idea do you want feedback on?
  6. How will you record feedback and ideas?

–

1*K6rMhNwPzntbu7Vd0p9aMg

I discovered the little app POP by Marvel which is a fantastic way to quickly prototype ideas for apps. I drew around my phone and then did some sketches. Took some photos and added some links and hotspots and then you have a little functioning app.

Sketches
Hotspots
App screens

Took me 5 minutes (including downloading the app) a great example of a functioning prototype. I need to work on the visuals!

If you enjoyed this post you should check out my article on the Prototyping Disposition and Learning in Perpetual Beta.

How to frame and reframe a problem

Design ThinkingPublished onUpdated on1 Comment on How to frame and reframe a problem

When you are participating in a Design Thinking process a crucial phase is the time when your team begins to define the problem you are attempting to solve.

This method outlined by Design Kit refers to framing the problem and is a powerful process you can use to increase the quality of the problem statements you are generating.

Rushing into Ideas

You may already know that once we have defined the problem we move into generating ideas. This is a critical transition and one we all have a tendency to rush.

We all enjoy the energy lift and change of pace of generating and developing ideas. In fact, many teams can’t help themselves and skip over the definition of the problem too quickly.

So the issue is often that we bounce too quickly onto ideation and we do not spend long enough in the problem state. Then we are left with ill-defined problems – too broad, too narrow, not worthwhile, are all characteristics you might look out for when reviewing your problem statements.

The framing and re-framing process force us to loop back into the process of defining the problem a little longer. It slows us down a little and checks our enthusiasm to rush ahead and ensures we have carefully crafted our problem statement and it is an accurate reflection of a worthwhile issue.

Step by Step Process

I have adapted some of the Design Kit steps below and have a HMW Framing template you can download here (just sign up to my newsletter to gain access)

  1. Describe the problem or issue
  2. List the stakeholders
  3. Re-frame the issue as a How Might We statement
  4. Describe the impact you are attempting to have.
  5. Who needs your help the most?
  6. What are some possible solutions to your problem?
  7. Describe the context and constraints you have to your future ideas.
  8. Re-write a different version of your original HMW statement.

Download the template here.

A clearly focused problem statement invariably yields both greater quantity and higher quality solutions (Stanford d.school, 2011)

FREE Bonus Problem Framing Resource

My Problem Framing template will help you to structure the process of defining a problem or challenge more clearly.

The PDF resource includes

  • Step by step process to follow.
  • Key provocations to challenge your thinking.
  • Space to iterate and create multiple versions.
  • Graphic organiser structure.

Download your copy of the resource by subscribing to my small but perfectly formed newsletter, the Dialogic Learning Weekly – ideas and insight about Innovation, Leadership and Learning.

Photo by Daria Nepriakhina on Unsplash

4 Ways to Apply Design Thinking in Your School

Design ThinkingPublished onUpdated on4 Comments on 4 Ways to Apply Design Thinking in Your School

Design thinking is a process for developing new ideas and solving problems. It is a series of “design-specific cognitive activities that designers apply during the process of designing” (Visser, W. 2006).

It normally involves:

  1. Empathising
  2. Synthesising
  3. Generating and judging ideas
  4. Prototyping
  5. Implementing and testing

A key part of my work over the last 6 years has been to help educators, and those involved with learning, explore the ways they might utilise this process in their organisations. In addition to understanding the “thinking like a designer” part.

Commonly we cite the use of design thinking as a problem-solving process that students participate in and regularly see students making and designing products or ideas.

However in the school environment the process and principles of design thinking can be applied to a number of different relevant domains:

  • Inquiry Learning Process (student)
  • School Improvement (leadership/teacher)
  • Teacher Inquiry (leadership/teacher)
  • Learning Design (teacher)

As an overview, I want to share with you, in brief, some of my own understandings from facilitating design thinking in these four different ways.

image

Inquiry Learning Process

As a problem solving process design thinking has the structure and potential for scaffolding an inquiry process. After all it is commonly used as a way to tackle complex or wicked problems.

A design thinking inquiry or learning process helps students develop empathy for other people who may be at the heart of an issue or topic. Empathy leads to a much deeper more authentic level of connection with what is being explored.

The latter parts of the process, testing and prototyping, emphasise an iterative approach. You may have heard this in relation to product design. The key thing for me is that this is about increasing the opportunities for critique and feedback.

School Improvement

For many school leaders and administration teams design thinking offers a fresh approach to complex school improvement issues.

Appropriately the process puts the learner (old or young) at the heart of everything. How well we understand the learner dictates the efficacy of the process to generate new ideas.

When working with school leadership teams I often start by exploring the assumptions they might have about the school development topic. By challenging assumptions early on in the process we are immediately moving to a more open mode of thinking or mindset.

An additional value when using design thinking is the imperative to release ideas early. Iterative development demands we involve others to gain feedback. A leadership team may develop an interesting solution to a complex problem and share it quickly with colleagues, even in a rough form.

We shouldn’t be locking ourselves away, to build perfectly transitioned slideshows, too soon.

Teacher Inquiry

This is about educators exploring problem areas within their own practice and working through a formalised process to learn and address them.

These might include a wide range of topics from implementing new technologies, to engaging reluctant writers, to creating an agentic learning space.

The process of design thinking scaffolds this teacher led inquiry extremely well and can be structured to support a variety of school improvement topics.

The opening phase of a practitioner inquiry would include gathering information:

  • Empathy: who is at the heart of this issue and how might I better understand the perspective they have? What assumptions might I have about the key stakeholders?
  • Data: what different forms of data do I have access to? What new data will I need to generate?
  • Observation: how can I directly observe this issue? How can I observe without bias?

This works well if educators are working in teams attached to a similar topic. They may well be teaching different age groups but coalesce for various parts of the process, sharing insights and ideas.

Learning Design

The role of the teacher is being recast as a designer of learning. When using a design thinking process our emphasis, once more, is on how well we understand the learner.

When we are designing a unit of learning, or a sequence of our curriculum, we can utilise the design thinking process to help structure our thinking and planning.

  1. Empathising — What do we know about our students? What data and assessment information do we have that might inform our design? What are our curriculum constraints? What are the key capabilities we need to focus on? What is happening in the world?
  2. Synthesising — narrow the focus of the learning design, identify key priorities and potential inquiry questions to follow. Key resources identified and shortlisted. Strong curriculum connections are forged.
  3. Generating and judging ideas — sequences of learning are explored and developed. New ideas and concepts for lessons and learning experiences are shared and filtered.
  4. Prototyping — learning designs are sketched out so that others can understand them and offer feedback. Different permutations are explored, with possibly multiple prototypes shared. Feedback gained from students and colleagues.
  5. Implementing and testing — new lesson sequences are implemented. Further feedback is sought from observation and planning review. Critique outcomes are shared and fed back into the design process.

An additional application, that is often overlooked, is the use of different phases of the process of design thinking in isolation.

Yes, the process has a mild interdependence to make the most of it. However there has been many occasions when I have facilitated a group to use a single phase along with the associated tools, skills and mindsets.

Adopting a flexible approach to the utility of the design thinking process is an important stance. This also leads to elaborating and extending the phases with what we already know or have been already implementing successfully.

That said when there is a common process shared amongst staff and students you see a powerful shift in practice and in the learning experience.

I recall accompanying a leadership team on an impromptu walk through school to punctuate some facilitated time. We sat with some Kindergarten students participating in a similar activity that we had just explored ourselves. The common language and shared process was an ongoing, tangible, and binding experience for the school community.

Photo by rawpixel.com on Unsplash

Prune Your Ideas – a visualisation by Bryan M. Mathers

Design ThinkingPublished onUpdated on2 Comments on Prune Your Ideas – a visualisation by Bryan M. Mathers

Over the last week or so I have been sharing some ideas about the process of generating and judging ideas. I was fortunate enough to receive the Tweet below from Bryan Mathers (@BryanMMathers) who shared his visualisation of the concepts.

You can take a look at a higher resolution copy of Bryan’s image below or on his blog here. Please note the creative commons licensing on it.

pruningideas

I like the idea of pruning as a representation of the way that we would judge our ideas in the latter stages of ideation. Carefully pulling away the dead wood to reveal the shoots with the most potential. Growing ideas is of course an easy representation of generating ideas too. Seeding as many as we can to see which would germinate.

Thanks to Bryan for taking the time to visualise my thinkery.

If you enjoyed this sort of thing you may also like this visualisation of a workshop I did in the US a while ago by @braddo.

3 Activities to Help Your Team: Generate, Develop and Judge Ideas

Design ThinkingPublished onUpdated on33 Comments on 3 Activities to Help Your Team: Generate, Develop and Judge Ideas

There are hundreds of different activities you can use for generating and developing ideas. I thought I would share a trio that works well together. They each require a specific type of thinking or mindset to be successful. The three activities are good representative examples of Divergent, Emergent and Convergent thinking.[1]

I have picked these three because they flow well together, and although they work well on their own, they complement each other well.

1. Crazy 8s

Time: 5mins / Skills: Idea generation / Mindset: Divergent or Open thinking / Resources: 8 Post-it notes per person, felt tip pens / Group: Ideal for small-medium sized groups, you will need a timekeeper. Independent work.

Generate eight different ideas in 5 minutes.[2]

Sounds easy enough, but this is a challenging little task. For each round, participants have 40 seconds to draw an idea on a post-it note. When the first round is done, the timer is immediately reset, and the second round begins for eight rounds in total, 5 minutes.

The most challenging part for most participants is that you can only draw the idea – stick to the no words rule. It means they have to generate an idea and then communicate that. It is worth spending some time being clear about the mindset of divergence and openness. All too often, we are our own worst filters, and people find this hard to shake.

2. Idea Pairs

Time: 15–20mins / Skills: Idea development / Mindset: Emergent or Exploratory thinking / Resources: Post-it notes, felt tip pens / Group: Ideal for small-medium sized groups that are comfortable working in pairs.

Combine ideas and discuss in a pair how they could work together.

I like the simplicity of this next step, and it flows seamlessly from the intensity of Crazy 8s[3]. Once you have finished the first step task (Crazy 8s), each participant will have many ideas; hopefully, they will have eight post-it notes in front of them, so long as they didn’t bail halfway through.

Ask the group to get themselves into pairs to discuss some idea combinations. Each person in the team picks one of their ideas at random and combines it with the arbitrary choice of their partner. Placing the two post-it notes side by side. Through discussion, the combination is explored, and new ideas are noted; this should increase the pool of ideas around the table.

I find this simple step is a great way to collide ideas that might have remained in isolation. It also helps participants talk through their thoughts, developing them further. An Exploratory or Emergent mindset is needed here, which emphasises the need for developing, pushing and prodding ideas in new directions.

3. Impact Vs Effort Matrix

Time: 20–30mins / Skills: Idea filtering / Mindset: Convergent or Closed thinking / Resources: Post-it notes, felt tip pens, whiteboard or large flip chart paper (tabletop also works fine) / Group: Small to medium group size for discussion.

Judge each idea created against a High/Low measure for Effort to implement and the impact it could have.

I always enjoy using this little matrix[4] to judge a smaller handful of ideas. You might have anything from 30–50 ideas from the group, depending on the group size. You might ask the whole team to pick 2–4 of their ideas to bring into this round; perhaps the pairs from the previous activity will discuss what to keep and what to cut. Once you have done that first filter, you can decide what High/Low for Effort and Impact is.

Draw up a four-quadrant matrix on a whiteboard or use some masking tape to do the same on those furry display boards! Label the axes accordingly:

  • HIGH EFFORT
  • LOW EFFORT
  • HIGH IMPACT
  • LOW IMPACT

Now, all you have to do as a team is discuss each idea and place it, measuring/judging the effort needed and its potential impact. This process is always a great way to converge into a small pocket of ideas that fit your requirements. You should pin up the post notes and shuffle them around as you chat about their potential.

From doing this many times, I would say that it is useful, as more ideas are added to the matrix, to compare ideas directly: “Will this be harder to implement than this one?” etc. Another tip would be to consider the trajectory of the ideas over time. Efforts to implement and impact may reduce or increase – mark up the future course and discuss what this means.

This is an effective task to help the group understand what is practical under the constraints you have as a team. It pushes you to make comparisons between ideas and prioritise and rank them in interesting ways. When you are in this state, you narrow your options and are thinking in a more Convergent manner.

Well, I hope those three little tasks prove helpful to you and your teams/students in the future. They flow well together and require barely any unique resources. They also fit within an hour if someone is cracking the whip and facilitating well – typical of the ideation phase. The critical thing for each step is to explicitly flag the mindset or thinking state needed to be successful. They are great examples of the three different thinking states: Divergent, Emergent and Convergent.

Give them a try, and let me know how you get on. Remember that these three tools are three of many, and you should do everything you can to expand the choices you have in your toolset. When you have more options, you can make better combinations of activities such as this trifecta.

  1. It is through these different thinking states that we typically experience a creative process. They often fall in the order written above but just as frequently break that rhythm. You can read a little more about the ebb and flow between divergent and convergent thinking in my previous blog post.  ↩
  2. I first came across the Crazy 8s ideation strategy from Google Ventures and a Jake Knapp blog post which is worth a read – lots of other ideas there too.  ↩
  3. I’d recommend building in some time to debrief after Crazy 8s. It is quite an intense task requiring focus and individual effort. Spend some time asking how people felt and how they found the task – giving the participants some time to chat will help the overall flow.  ↩
  4. The Matrix is everywhere. It is all around us. Even now, in this very room. You can see it when you look out your window or when you turn on your television. You can feel it when you go to work… when you go to church… when you pay your taxes. It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth.  ↩