The Zero-Context Design Workshop Guide

The lion's share of the design consulting work that I do with ThoughtWorks is at genesis of new projects. And a hefty chunk of that is pre-sales, where the goal is to give a taste of what we do and how we come at it. A lot of the time, there's not much context to build from, and when there is, it often turns out to be a bit of a bum-steer. No one's fault - it's just the nature of unknown unknowns and so on. Over the years I've refined and honed my default position for facilitating these early design workshops.

Today, a colleague asked me for some guidance on how I prepare. See my response, including summary of some favourite design thinking exercises, and links to resources.

For early workshops, I usually treat the first 1/2 day - or few hours at least - as just a question and answer session.

I don't consciously structure that, but typically the questions are guided by parts of the Business Model Canvas. Mostly I'm interested in:

Who the customer is, what is their unmet need (value proposition), what relationship(s) do they have with the organisation, and what channels/touchpoints they mostly engage with. I also like to get a feel for what activities are required from the organisation in order to provide a service. And, I like to know who they consider as competitors, and how they think they're different.

Generally I just want to keep them talking, so I can listen, and build an understanding. Every now and then, I'll synthesise everything I've heard and play it back as something pithy to make sure they know that I understand everything I'm hearing. But, I don't talk about solutions, only framing of problems or opportunities.

The methods I choose next depend on how well the conversation goes, how much time I have with them later, and how difficult the group are to handle. Having said that, my default position is usually something like this:

• Define archetypes (usually tease these out from initial Q&A session)
• Fast experience mapping (as-is), usually for 2-3 'hero' flows (definitive guide)
• Identify pain points in the customer journeys
• Redefine the pain-points as design challenges or objectives (I usually use 'how might we...' for that) written from user POV (using the defined archetypes)

At this point, I usually feel like I've sufficiently framed the problem.

If there's still time, I'll typically follow that up with some divergent thinking exercises to get people riffing on possible ways of improving/solving the pain points. For a super-fast version, go for a basic post-up exercise (one-liners on post-its) and some basic cluster analysis to find themes and relationships between things . If I'm feel adventurous and the group is cooperating, I do like to whip out some version of KJ Method instead of just the basics. How-Now-Wow Matrix is also a favourite for idea selection/prioritisation - it cuts through BS like butter. A real time-saver if you've got 'chatty' participants. It's quite informal, but that's fine, since all I want to know is which concepts are worthy of further exploration on another day with sketching or collaborative/participatory design.

That's usually enough to keep me on my feet and hand-waving for about 2-3 days of workshops.

By this stage, the next steps usually transpire, and it becomes more obvious what to do next.

I'm working to describe an more detailed guide - an approach or framework - which I'll share in time. It's a work in progress that I've been chipping away at for... years!