Design thinking workshops
Turning every day problems into ‘ready-to-test’ solutions
The pandemic has reinforced one of the bitter truths of life more than ever - that change is a constant, presenting a big challenge to adapt to the environment and stay relevant in an ever-changing space.
But how? Well - the secret to staying ahead of the curve is constant innovation but that is easier said than done! That’s why we use Design Thinking principles to underpin pretty much all the work we do with our clients. This includes our research programmes with end users, our creativity classes and proposition development workshops that follow, and even in our bespoke projects including employee experience alignment, brand strategy and and startup/entrepreneur sessions.
This programme is a set of interactive, live one-to-one workshops - they are not pre-recorded! They are designed to help any business to innovate or redesign a product or service, based on customer need and feedback. It may be that your company is a startup, looking to customer-centric from the outset. Or perhaps your organisation is more established, but is facing changes in competition, or in legislation. Or simply trying to create a better business offer, following the huge impact of Covid-19.
Whatever your reasons for needing to innovate, this event is for you.
Each workshop is tailored to client-specific requirements, and its content can be broken up into different sessions and intervals. But the overall delivery remains the same - its aim is to guide the client team to take its challenge/issue through the five steps of Design Thinking, ending up with real-life solutions that are ready to test with customers.
In the true spirit of design thinking principles, this workshop was repurposed in 2020 as a virtual activity, to respond to Covid-19 health and safety needs. It remains an online activity in 2021.
One of the new benefits of our virtual workshop is that participants can work together as a team, whilst individually joining from anywhere in the world! With no travel time involved, every hour is spent directly on solving problems and creating solutions - it’s super-efficient and flexible, with every session recorded to enable catch-up and review, should individuals be unable to attend live for every session.
Below, you’ll find an overview of the tasks and workflow for the workshop. In this example, the content is configured as three half-day sessions, with one week intervals in-between. Some clients might choose to break them down into smaller 2-hour sessions spread across a longer timeframe - it is entirely configurable to suit the client and its team members.
Session 1
Meet the team - a quick round of introductions, so everyone knows who is helping out here, their background and skills.
Set the goal - what are we trying to achieve here? Working backwards, where do we want to be in e.g. 6 weeks time?
Biggest fears - let’s capture them, and not lose sight of addressing them throughout the 3-session sprint.
Make the Map - we’ll create together a list of customer types and map out how they interact with the products/services you offer.
We Quiz You - this is where our experts drill into your client offer to understand how it works - imagine we’re a journalist asking questions. The aim is to be clear on the processes you use.
Reframe problems - let’s look at the core problems that you have currently and how we might flip them into opportunities and a new way of working. Imagination time!
Let’s Vote! - a quick round of scoring to choose the problems to target and which customers would benefit most if they were solved.
By the end of Session 1, you will already come away with some possible ways to redesign your client offer, to be more resilient, especially in these challenging days of Covid-19.
Session 2
Research + Demo - start the session by trawling the web to expand what we know about these problems and the challenges they present to your client offer. This knowledge will support your own thoughts and experience. Whatever is valuable, you will capture by drawing on the virtual whiteboard.
Divide and conquer - before you start to detail what the client offer will look like, break down the core pieces of it and allocate one to each team member.
Sketch time - gather up the notes from Session 1 that made the idea appealing. Now, each person uses stick figures to draw the key elements in the client offer that are changing from what you currently do. You’ll do this a few times, trying to vary the new element to explore options. Each team member will combine their sketches into a single 3-frame cartoon, detailing their piece of the idea.
Gallery Review - we will then go through a few exercises to help choose the cartoon ideas we like the most as a group. This includes discussing their pro’s and con’s, as well as secret voting, until a public vote reveals the winning ideas. Some of the unchosen good ideas will be kept for storage or recycling (stealing some of their best bits to incorporate into the winners!)
Merge or standalone - decide whether the winning ideas can be combined into a single client offer, or whether they need their own space as standalone improvements.
Storyboard them - this session creates a full length cartoon of the new and/or improved client offer. We will help you stay true to your idea and not get blown off course.
By the end of Session 2, you will have developed a storyboard for your improved client offer. This new version of your client offer is really taking shape now, and is tangible enough to start showing clients.
You will have also learned quite a lot about the creativity of your team(!) and you will realise that you can draw! 😃
Session 3
Assign roles for building a prototype - make the best use of your team here, assigning different tasks, according to what they are good at and their job role. We will guide you here, assigning roles for those good at creating processes and policies vs. others who may be better at writing or still others who are born researchers.
Now build it - using the storyboard to guide you, create a working version of your new client offer. The prototype will vary according to the product/service of course. For example, redesigning a physical space that clients visit is very different from communicating a new offer on a website, or moving a previously face-to-face service to a virtual one. Having a team member in the role of ‘Customer Advocate’ will help keep you focused on the goal.
You will need your Researcher to find assets (images, icons, copy, customer FAQs) so you don’t need to write everything from scratch.
You will assign an Interviewer to create a script that takes a potential client through the new client offer to get their feedback (see also Next Steps below)
Finally, you’ll do some Quality Control, to help stitch it together to look consistent and clear, as well as feeling on-brand. Integrate existing brand messaging to help do this.
Make a list of ‘clients’ to test it with - write a list of people you would like to help you review the new client offer. They could be real clients, colleagues, or friends that you trust.
By the end of Session 3, you will have created a prototype that is clear enough to be able to test it with would-be clients.
Next Steps
With the workshop now completed, you’ll need to arrange to conduct the client test interviews.
This is something that you can either do yourselves, or we can handle this for you, finalising the interview script, running the event and reporting back on findings and recommended changes. (clients can watch the interviews live and/or a recorded video.
If required, we can also support you with ongoing advice and coaching on implementing your client offer, training colleagues and marketing activity to promote your proposition.
How Much Does This Workshop cost?
Costs start from £1,099 ex VAT and vary, depending upon how the sessions are configured, and the size of the team taking part. We also offer significant discounts for startups, registered charities and not-for-profits.
To find out more, and explore how your team(s) could benefit from this workshop, contact info@customerfaithful.com.
Image Credit:
The image at the top of this page was designed by Denver-based product designer and pun + sarcasm enthusiast Kelli Fox.