Design thinking (6 phases)

As a dreamer, you will need to focus on generating ideas without judgment, evaluation or restrictions. This position is meant to unlock as many ideas as possible form the team. From this position, you aren’t aware of any barriers, budget restrictions, technology limitations, etc. Dream big! Ask yourselves: What do we really want? How do we imagine our solution? What would be the ideal product or solution? Build on other team members' ideas and re-shape those ideas to dream bigger

Cluster the best ideas before you move to the next step. Move the ideas to the critic position. Note: Some teams move forward with one idea per session to keep the meeting short.

From the best ideas/idea, start figuring out what steps and resources you would need to take to make that possible. Think of this like an action plan required to make those ideas a reality. Ask yourselves: What would need to be true to make this possible? How can we apply this idea? What would be our action plan? What would be our timeline and why? What resources would we need? What would facilitate the process? Tip: Believe that those ideas are possible before you start finding the reasons why the idea is not possible.

Now you have an action plan, so you and your team will focus on finding solutions and tackling roadblocks. Ask yourselves: What are the key barriers? What problems do you see? What could go wrong with this idea? Would this idea satisfy all our needs? For how long? What is missing? How important is what we are missing? What are the weaknesses?

Add the test or experiment number here if you are experimenting with this idea multiple times.

Describe your solution and provide information about your proposal.

Add your sketches, colors, materials, price comparison, etc

Send your prototype or a link to your online app/webiste to your end user and film how they use your solution. Share the link to that video here.

Look at you user using your prototype and evaluate how the use it. Where are they struggling? Are they reaching the goal? What do they think? What's their reaction? How much would they pay for it?

Fill in missing details on the board. Add your goal, a description of the goal, and your current and desired status.

Add all the actions you and your team will need to take to achieve your goal. Think about the actions you plan to take to reach your goal. You will evaluate and prioritize these actions using the board matrix template or by opening a new session (using tools like AARRR, B.E.A, or MOSCOW).

Develop your action plan by filling out the action plan matrix. Evaluate the sections you are planning to take to reach your goal. Follow these five sections: How would this action be accomplished? Who will help in finalizing this action? The necessary time and resources. How will you assess that you are making progress? What metrics will you use? What evidence will indicate completion?

Make sure you have a persona in mind before starting this exercise. If you don't yet have one, create one using our "Personas" tool, or have a pre-defined persona in mind. You may add a link to the persona on the board.

Before proceeding, you should know basic information about the target: such as Age, Sex, Lifestyle, Hobbies, Status, Education, Location, Interest, Groups, etc. You should also know key characteristics that will differentiate your user from other people/users.

Make sure everyone understands who they are before you start building the empathy map.

👉You can add basic things here: Profile, Job to be done, Pain points, etc.

👇🙉🙊🙈But let's go over the details.

Start by finding information online (the easiest way to gather data quickly). Write down a number of places where your customers may hang out online, and make sure your team searches for recent data.

Excellent places to search are online forums, Facebook groups, comments sections of popular blog posts, Google reviews, and Amazon reviews. These pages are often excellent places to observe the way your customers really feel.

💥Note: Doing some research before you open the board and discuss this session further with your team can facilitate the process.

An empathy map is an easy and visual matrix that captures knowledge about a user’s behaviors and attitudes. It is a useful tool to help teams better understand their users and to evaluate information during interviews.

Empathy maps have four elements:

Consider personal connections with family, friends, and coworkers along with what is being said in the media by bloggers, social media influencers, and experts in fields.

Define your main market on the sticky board. Who is your key user or buyer (people affected by the problem)? Who are you creating this solution (idea, product, solution, advertising, etc.) for? Be specific (age, sex, social status, etc)

In this step, dig a little bit deeper and consider the reason behind that need and what negative emotions are they trying to avoid. Think about all the negative emotions, undesired costs or situations, and risks the customer/user (could) experience before, during, or after getting the job done. Ask yourself: What is stopping them from achieving their goal or job? What is it? When does it happen? Why does it happen? How does it happen?

In this step, with your team, define how the user and the buyer feel without your solution and how they would feel once they have your solution.

With your team, find out when they think about the problem the most. Also, consider when they need this solution the most.

With your team, create a list of reasons why they (user, customer, etc.) need your solution or idea. Cover the following questions: What social, emotional, cognitive, or functional jobs do your customers do on a daily basis? Why? Uncover why they need to do each of these things and you'll start to understand their lives more deeply. What prevents them from doing their jobs? Why do they need your solution? What type of "needs" do you cover? Primary needs? How is your solution solving their problem?

Define the space where your user (customer, etc.) uses the solution. Try to be as descriptive as possible and imagine the space and the things around them.

Think about all the benefits the customer/user expects, or would be surprised by. This includes functional utility, social gains, positive emotions, cost savings, etc.

What keeps them up at night? What are they passionate about? Why? What's the reason behind that motivation or belief? What do they fear? Why?

Check forums, Facebook, social media or conduct new research to evaluate how your customer/user talks about the problem. Add your notes and findings here.

Describe in detail what problem you are solving with your solution or idea.

Now that you and your team have defined the main audience, try to define the size of that target market and the rest of the audience. If the team has an approximate idea of the market size of each audience, we recommend adding that information here.

Create a persona and add as much information as you consider important. Once everyone in the team has a clear idea o the motivations, fears, the solution your customer needs, etc add it to the board. You can also schedule a meeting to discuss further.

The Five Whys is a fantastic method to get to the core of a person’s beliefs and motivations. It may feel repetitive, like a four-year-old asking "why" over and over, but sticking with it can lead to valuable insights.

During an interview, start with broad questions like "Do you save much money?" or "How was your harvest this year?" Then, ask "why" five times to delve deeper into the answers. This method helps uncover emotional and human aspects of a problem.

Here's how to use it:

🤜1. Start with a broad question about the participant’s habits or behaviors, then ask "why" five times in a row. Use a different sticky note color for each person you interview.

🤨2. Focus on depth, not breadth. Ask questions that probe deeper into the reasons behind their answers.

🔥3. Write down their responses, paying attention to their reactions, exact words, and emotions. Ask follow-up questions like "How does that make you feel?" or "How would this affect your family?" to understand more.

😎4. Keep asking "why" until you reach deeper insights. This might not happen until the fourth or fifth "why."

😵5. After all the interviews, compile your insights and conclusions in the conclusion section.

During the interview or phone call, keep this board open or take notes. Add one insight per sticky notes. Evaluate how people feel and their emotions. Do they sound excited? Are they confused?

The team lead or product owner can start adding features and product ideas to the board. Once you are done, invite your team.

Add features that are missing, and use a different color sticky note for each feature. Make sure you add the source of the feature/idea (ie. does the feature idea originate from a competitor or client request?), as well as the problem the feature solves.

Discuss your ideas from the point of view of each quadrant of Utility, Advantages, Resources, and Convenience. Add points to sticky notes on the board under each quadrant. Here are some example questions to ask yourself for each category: Utility: How can we make this idea work? Why is the idea useful? What could cause this idea not to work? Advantages: What are the advantages of this idea? What advantages would be gained if it was partially implemented / fully implemented? Are the advantages large? How long would they last? Resources: Do we have the resources to execute this idea? Which other resources will be useful? Do we have time? Convenience: Is this convenient for my customer? What kind of inconveniences are we going to have in implementing it, or after the implementation?

After all categories have been discussed, go one by one through all points posted to the board. Add discussion points to the note for this step. While reviewing each others' notes, keep coming up with additional points for each category. Debate points made by others, and think of ways to improve/evolve the current idea.

Next, discuss the best options for moving forward with your feature ideas, and any modifications. Open a new session and create an action plan for implementation. If you discover the idea is no longer feasible, you may put it on the backburner until conditions change or scrap it altogether.