Welcome to a day-long Design Sprint for JU faculty in support of active, project-based learning in the classroom through Design Thinking.
Organized by: Murat Tiryakioḡlu, PhD, CQE, Executive Vice President for STEAM, Jacksonville University
Facilitated by: Ken Baldauf, Director, FSU Innovation Hub
Agenda
08:30 AM Check-in Continental Breakfast
09:00 Welcome and Introductions
09:15 Introduction to Design Thinking
09:45 Design Challenge Reveal, Guest: Dr. Will Miller
10:15 Empathy Activity: Ethnographic Research
10:40 Short Break
10:55 Empathy Activity: Sense-making Affinity Map
11:25 Empathy Activity: Persona/Empathy Map
11:45 Empathy: Other methods
11:50 Synthesizing and (Re)framing: “How Might We…”
12:15 Lunch Break
01:00 Sharing HMW’s
01:30 Ideation Overview
01:45 Ideation Activity: Integrated Brain Storming
02:15 Ideation Activity: Think Wrong
02:30 Other ideation methods
02:45 Ideation Activity: Idea Filtering
03:00 Short Break
03:15 Prototyping Overview
03:30 Prototyping Activity: Storyboarding and more
04:00 Group Presentations
04:45 Reflection
05:00 Conclude
Participant Prep and Ground Rules
Participants are asked to take the Personality Test at https://www.16personalities.com/ making note of your personality type for use in our activities.
Acquaint yourself with Design Thinking by reading the article at https://hbr.org/2015/09/design-thinking-comes-of-age, and searching the web for more information.
We ask that participants are fully engaged for the entire duration of the workshop since you will be working in small teams through a sequence of exercises to develop solutions.
Electronic devices are welcome as tools for research related to the design work you will be engaged in. Breaks are provided for checking email and texts.
Dress is as CASUAL as is reasonable within your work environment. We want everyone to be relaxed and comfortable to maximize creativity.
Introduction (9:15)
Design Challenge:
How might we increase retention of students at JU?
Empathy Stage (9:45)
Empathizing with the people experiencing the problem, and researching the relevant details. NOT thinking about solutions!
Ethnographic research involves observing issues from the point of view of the subject of the study. Methods include interviews, observation, role-taking, desk research, surveys and focus groups.
Q&A with Special Guest, Subject Area Expert, Dr. Will Miller (30 minutes)
Activity 1 - Interviewing (15 minutes)
Pair up for interviews with the purpose of learning about the person you are interviewing and their views and experiences around the problem. Each person will take turns playing the part of the interviewer, five minute each. Approach the interview with the mind of a beginner, setting aside pre-conceived notions, and pretending to know nothing about the problem. Use post-its to note facts and insights relevant to the problem. Begin with the interviewee’s name (post-it #1), followed by insight about the interviewee’s personality, one per post-it. Set those aside, and start asking questions about the interviewee’s experience and insight regarding the design problem. After both people have served as interviewer and interviewee, if time allows, spend two minutes each asking deeper follow-up questions based on insights you gained.
15-Minute Break @ 10:30
Activity 2 - Affinity Map (25 minutes)
Pairs combine into groups of four (or three or five) and gather around a white board. Each person introduce the person you interviewed - sticking the intro post-its at the top of the board. Then begin sharing the insights you gained by sticking them on the board one at a time. As group members see correlation with their own insights, they should share their ideas sticking the post-it along side the one it is related to. As all members share their insights in a free form manner, clusters of post-its should begin to emerge on the board. When all post-its are on the board, circle and label the clusters. It is normal to have a few outliers. Those outliers might be the most significant insights! One’s that no one has ever considered. They might serve to unlock new and unique solutions later in the process.
Activity 3 - Empathy Map (15 minutes)
The Empathy Map provides a reference to insights about a persona representing your primary stakeholder. Consider an actual person for whom you are designing a solution - this will be a persona that your group will reference throughout the design process. Use a white board area to sketch the image shown here, providing just the large words for reference. Sketch your persona of on a post-it and give her or him a name. Stick the persona post-it at the center of your Empathy Map (see image). Have the group consider the questions on the Empathy map and write their insights on post-its, one per post-it, sticking the post-its in the appropriate locations. In relation to the design problem:
What does your persona Hear and See?
What does your persona Think and Feel?
What does your persona Say and Do?
What are pain points and positive aspects - gains.
Other Tools for Empathy
Stakeholder Map
A tool for identifying the primary stakeholder and all others impacted by the problem.
Context Map
A tool for analyzing environmental trends in the organization, in technology, in society, in users behavior and in the market that impact the problem.
Mind Map
A tool for organizing one’s thoughts about the problem, components, and connected concepts.
Journey Map
A tool for analyzing the primary stakeholder’s (or other stakeholders’) activities and interactions before, during, and after the point of the problem in time.
(Re)framing Stage (11:50)
In this stage you synthesize the results of your empathy research, decide on a specific problem within the main problem domain, and compose a descriptive How Might We (HMW) question.
Activity 4 - Synthesize and (Re)frame (30 minutes)
Consider the insights you have gained so far through empathy research, interviews, affinity map, persona, and compliment that research with additional online research, phone calls, whatever is needed to answer any remaining questions or points of confusion. Once your research is complete consider key insights that you might like to address with your solution. Seek the unusual and unique - insights that no one has considered before. As a group settle on one specific problem that you would like to work on. If there is a difference of opinion utilize dot voting to choose one. Compose a (re)framed problem statement in the form of an HMW.
How might we help ___________, to ___________, so that ___________.
45-Minute Lunch
Sharing and Supporting (20 minutes)
Each group shares their HMW question for support and feedback from the group.
Ideation (1:30)
From problem space to solution space! In the ideation stage we use divergent thinking to explore all possible and even impossible solutions seeking always to escape our pre-programmed thinking patterns to find solutions that are new, unique and impactful. Often times outlandish, impossible ideas spark creative ideas that are “just crazy enough to work.”
Activity 5: DT Brainstorming with Affinity Map (30 minutes)
In Design Thinking Brainstorming we combine independent brainstorming with group brainstorming in order to access every idea for a solution from every group member. Take five minutes of silence at the table, for each group member to generate as many ideas on post-its as possible. Go for quantity over quality. Spend the next 20 minutes sharing your ideas with the group by placing the post-its on a white board area, finding commonalities, cluster post-its, circle and label to see where group ideas align (as you did for insights in Activity 2). There is no bad idea. Build on each other’s ideas.
Activity 6: Think Wrong (15 minutes)
In his book “Think Wrong,” John Bielenberg and his team share dozens of methods to help innovators come up with new ideas. One method utilizes random words to seed fresh ideas. Use the random word generator at www.randomwordgenerator.com to generate three random words. Consider the words separately and in various combinations to play with word associations that lead to new ideas for solution to your design problem. For example, when working to assist returning citizens (ex-prisoners) in finding gainful employment, the randomly produced words “victory, ego, and wrong,” might lead one to think of a wrong victory, which might lead to thinking about the false assumptions that prisoners have about returning to society which might lead to the production of board game that produces informative “correct victories” to properly prepare prisoners for life outside the walls. See how many new post-its you can generate with three random words.
Other Ideation Tools (15 minutes)
Brain Writing
Team members seated around a table write a solution idea on a piece of paper and pass it to the right. The next team member adds and improves on the idea and passes it on. The process continues until everyone gets their original paper back vastly improved with the group ideas.
Thinking Different
Teams travel around the room exploring other teams post-it boards considering how solutions for different HMW’s might spark an idea for their own HMW.
Mash-Ups
Apply the design style of well known companies to develop a solution for your problem. For example, if you are looking for an entertaining solution, consider how Disney might approach the problem.
Business Model Canvas
The Business Model Canvas is a worksheet that allows you to consider all aspects of a solution from a business perspective. Will this thing actually sell?
Stakeholder Value Map
A tool that supports the analysis of investment and return on investment for every stakeholder.
Activity 7 - Idea Filtering (25 minutes)
It’s time to determine which of your ideas to start prototyping. Review all of your post-its and decide on your top three to five solutions based on impact and feasibility. Fill out an Idea Card for each of your top ideas. Map the Idea Cards on an Impact/Feasibility grid to determine which has the highest position. If there is no clear winner have each group member put a dot on the faces of each card to express how they feel about each idea. Whichever card has the most smiles and least frowns wins.
15-Minute Break @ 3:00
*Optional Activity 8 - Feedback Loop! (20 minutes)
Have half the group stay at home base to pitch your solution, while the other half travels to the neighboring group to hear their pitch and provide feedback. The pitch should be uninterrupted and last three minutes. The feedback should also be uninterrupted for three minutes. Be sure to take notes on the feedback you receive. If there’s time, visit two groups! All teams return home and make final adjustments to your solution based on feedback and new inspiration.
Prototyping (3:30)
In order to best communicate your brilliant solution to the world you must bring it out of your head and into the visible world as a prototype. Prototypes are born in simple, basic, form (low-fidelity) - where they can be critiqued fearlessly, and are iterated and refined to perfection. There are four primary methods of prototyping:
Storyboard
Tell the story of your solution being implemented as a cartoon. Feature main actions on the part of the stakeholder, and emotional face expressions.
Physical Crafting
Using pipe-cleaners, construction paper, tape, and other crafting supplies build a simple model of your idea.
Paper Prototype (App)
Show the user experience of your app by drawing it screen by screen and demonstrating how a person would use it in a use case. Digital Prototyping with software like proto.io takes your app to the next level.
Act it out
Have the members of the group act out the use of your solution with each group member playing a role.
Activity 9 - Prototype! (30 minutes)
Begin with a paper prototype.
Have ALL group members take 10 minutes to create their own individual storyboards using post-its for the image frames telling the story of your solution.
Once finished each member shares their prototype with your own group.
After all have talked through their prototypes, decide on the best one, or the best elements from all.
Prepare for your final class presentation by either drawing a BIG storyboard on butcher/craft paper drawing from the best elements of your group member storyboards, or rehearsing a play that you will put on for the group to demonstrate your solution.
Some group members can create physical crafting prototypes to accompany your storyboard or play.
If an app is part of your solution, you can draw out some screens as a paper prototype.
Practice your presentation, you may use the projected computer if that helps. Decide who will speak and how you will effectively tell the story of your solution.
Presentations (4:00)
Each group provides three minute presentation, beginning with their (re)framed HMW, and demonstrating their solution using their prototype. Two minutes will be provided for Q&A.