Design-At-Scale-AIGA-Orange-County-pdf

Design  
at Scale
IBM Design Thinking Workshop  
AIGA Orange County
John Murray
IBM Design
© 2016 IBM Corporation

Welcome.
IBM Studios :: © 2016 IBM Corporation

Let’s get
acquainted.

• your name
• where you’re from
• your current job role
• your level of design thinking experience
• what you hope to learn today
• your guilty pleasure food
I want to know:

John Murray
IBM Hybrid Cloud Design Lead, Austin, TX
About me
I want to teach you how to take
design thinking techniques from today’s
workshop and apply it to your work,
whether you work alone or with dozens
of designers, developers, writers, or
project managers.
I’m a sucker for gas station potato wedges!

What’s the
point?

Design thinking is
everywhere but
there’s plenty of
people telling you
how to do it and how
it works, but not
enough people are
talking about the
practical application.

We’ll be doing as
much hands-on
learning as
anything. That’s the
best way to get
good at this.

Here’s the
game plan!

Break
Needs Statements
Introduction
Activity
Playback
Big Ideas
Introduction
Activity
Playback
Prioritize
Introduction
Activity
Playback
Roadmap
Introduction
Activity
Playback
Introductions
Activities
Playbacks
15 minutes
20 minutes
15 minutes
Introduction
Activity
Playback
Empathy Maps
Storyboarding
Introduction
Activity
Playback
Final
thoughts
Break
1 2
3 4
5 6

Keep these  
things in mind.

Empathy

IBM Design :: IBM Confidential :: © 2015 IBM Corporation
You
Product Manager
Engineer
Design Lead
Manager
Executive
Buyer
Implementer
Why user research?

Why user research?
Everyone on the team
knows something  
about your users.

Why user research?
Rely on your knowledge and
experiences but never assume
that they are a substitute for
talking to users and
understanding their needs

Storytelling

Story
telling
As-is/To-be
Empathymapping
Storyboarding
Playbacks
They’re all ways to tell a story about
the user and their experience.
{

Diverge Remix Converge

Ground Rules
• Write before you talk.
Write or sketch lots of your ideas on sticky notes before talking about them.  
During discussions, capture the main points on sticky notes and post to the wall.
• There are no bad ideas.
Start big—diverge to get everyone’s ideas out there. Remix to discuss, cluster,
and seek patterns. Then converge to determine the strongest ideas.
• Stay focused on your users.
Tell stories about users to keep them at the center of your attention.
• Everyone participates.
Everyone has a Sharpie, everyone has a pad of sticky notes.
• Stay engaged.
Avoid side conversations. Use a parking lot to capture issues that are off-topic.
• Start on time, stay on time.
To meet our goals, we need to watch the clock and stick to the plan.
• Yes, and…
It’s easy to play the devil’s advocate. Instead of dismissing the ideas that your
teammates suggest, push yourself to build on them.

• Focus on the user.
Tell us a story! Try to base your Playback in story about your user.
• Not too much detail.
Don’t take more than a few minutes to Playback—stay out of the
weeds! Use a parking lot to capture items that are off-topic.
• Don’t read every sticky note.
Synthesize, summarize, and prioritize for us. What’s your point of
view right now? What’s most important or surprising? What themes
and patterns have emerged? What are the outlier ideas?
• What questions arise?
Do you agree with what was presented? What questions do you
(still) have? What do you not understand? What assumptions are
being made? Capture all of this information on sticky notes
rather than getting stuck in a deep-dive discussion.
• Stay engaged.
Playbacks are important moments of alignment and understanding—
pay attention! Lean in.
Playbacks

No final decisions
will be made.
You won’t have
enough time.
You won’t have  
enough information.
You’ll have questions.
This is all okay!  
We’re here to learn.
Caveats

Outcomes

• Have a richer understanding of design thinking
• Feel encouraged to implement this at work
• Develop a sense of empathy for our users
By the end I hope you:

Let’s get
started 

Our task:
Design a better way for  
people to plan and  
prepare their meals  
throughout the week.

some solutions may seem obvious

some solutions may seem traditional

Come up with something that suits your user, not you.

IBM Design :: © 2016 IBM Corporation
Meet your
users

Darren is a 30-something single dad with 2
kids in middle school. Darren uses
government assistance to help with
groceries and works about 50 hours  
per week in two part-time jobs.
Darren

Phong is a 62-year-old nursing-home
assistant who lives and works in a food
desert. He clocks 70 hours a week—often
during long, overnight shifts—and is reliant
on his city’s public bus system.
Phong

Marco is a 20-year-old college student living
in an apartment with his 2 best friends. He
struggles with his weight, and never really
learned how to cook or eat healthy—as a
kid, dinner usually meant fast food.
Marco

Empathy Mapping

EATS

What do they say or need to
say to others? How do they
likely express themselves?
What do they do to
achieve their task?
How does this person
feel about their job?
What do they think about the situation?  
What is their worldview?
Quotes Expectations  
& Reactions
Actions Values

Any questions?

Let’s get started!

1. What are your user’s pain points?
2. What does your user value?
3. What motivates your user?
4. What are your users thinking and feeling?
5. What do you still not know about your users?

Needs 
Statements

______________ needs a way to ______________ so that ______________
Activity: Needs Statements
do something
that addresses
their needThe user
the user  
beneﬁts  
directly.

______________ needs a way to ______________ so that ______________

• Write the template at the top of
the sheet.
• Look at your empathy map for 
inspiration.
• Post Needs Statements  
in pairs.

• Discuss and cluster similar
statements.
• Rewrite the pair if that helps.
• Label the clusters.
• Try writing one big Needs
Statement that represents the
entire cluster—use the same
“need/benefit” format.

Write out the “Über Needs Statement” that will guide
your team’s work for the rest of the workshop.

• Write the template at the top of
the sheet.
• Refer to previous artifacts  
like our empathy map.
• Post Needs Statements  
in pairs.

Break
15 minutes

Ideation

Ideation
Feature. Big idea.

Ideation
Big ideas are broad and conceptual
and focused on user needs.
Features are discreet and tactical  
and focused on the machine.

Ideation
Start with a
big idea.

Ideation
Then a
a picture

Ideation

Ideation
“Yes, and!”
“It’s kinda like…”

• Keep this quick and high-level. 
(15 seconds per vignette)
• Don’t discuss implementation  
or feasibility yet!
• Diverge first then converge
• Cluster similar and related
ideas—try labeling the
clusters.

Prioritization

1
Vote
2
Plot
1
Vote

Activity: Prioritization Grid
1
Vote
2
Plot

Impact to the user
LOTS OF STARS = HIGH IMPACT
• Does it turn a pain point into a delight?

• Does it expand user value?

• Does it differentiate the product?
Feasibility for us
LOTS OF GREEN DOTS = HIGHLY FEASIBLE
• Can we do this as an organization?

• Can we take this to market?

• Is it technically feasible?
What’s most
impactful to  
our users?
What’s most  
feasible for us?
•Everyone gets the same
number of votes.

•Evaluate each “big idea”
quickly and on your own,
to the best of your
knowledge.

What’s most impactful to  
our users? What’s most  
feasible for us?
•Everyone gets the same number of votes (6)

•Evaluate each “big idea” quickly and on
your own, to the best of your knowledge.

•Vote based on impact and feasibility.
LOTS OF  
STARS =  
HIGH IMPACT
LOTS OF  
GREEN DOTS =
HIGHLY FEASIBLE

Activity: Prioritization Grid
2
Plot
1
Vote

Feasibility for usHARD

$$$$
EASY

$
Impacttotheuser
HIGH
LOW
What’s most impactful to  
our users? What’s most  
feasible for us?
•Roughly plot each idea onto the grid,
using the voting dots as a loose guide.

•Discuss and reposition ideas in
relation to each other.

•Do some ideas seem more impactful
than others? Do some ideas seem
more feasible than others?

No  
BrainersBig Bets
Utilities
Unwise 
for now
IGNORE 
FOR NOW
OBVIOUS
CHOICE
TOUGH 
DECISION
• No Brainers pose the
possibility of a tactical
advantage

• Big Bets can offer
strategic differentiation

• Utilities may represent  
table stakes

• Don’t waste time or
energy discussing
Unwise items

No  
BrainersBig Bets
Utilities
Unwise 
for now
OBVIOUS
CHOICE
TOUGH 
DECISION
IGNORE 
FOR NOW
• No Brainers pose the
possibility of a tactical
advantage

• Big Bets can offer
strategic differentiation

• Utilities may represent  
table stakes

• Don’t waste time or
energy discussing
Unwise items

Experience-Based 
Roadmapping

What are we doing in the
next X ⁄ Y ⁄ Z months?

How might we scope and
purposefully deliver  
these big ideas to the market  
while focusing on the  
user experience?

How might we articulate our  
vision for the future  
and deliver something  
today that sets us down  
the right path?

STAGE 1 STAGE 2 STAGE 3
We know

this will  
be true.
We think 
we know
this will  
be true.
We think

this will  
be true.

blog.crisp.se/2016/01/25/henrikkniberg/making-sense-of-mvpWith compliments to Henrik Kniberg

Our user can… / will be able to…
STAGE
1
STAGE
2
STAGE
3
Align around what experiences
we’ll deliver to our users when.
•Draw this map on a sheet of paper.

•Post user enablements onto the map, one per sticky note.

•To focus on the user enablement (not on the features),
start each note with Can… or Will be able to…
•Move the sticky notes in relation to each other on the  
map to match the journey where they make most sense.

•As a ﬁnal step, identify and draw three separate columns:
Stage 1, Stage 2, and Stage 3.

SHORT  
TERM
LONG  
TERM
•Move the idea to the short-term:  
Some ideas might be so fundamental to  
the core user experience that they must  
be included in the short-term column.
Short term or long term?

SHORT  
TERM
LONG  
TERM

•Scope down the idea:  
Other ideas may need to be scoped-down
into more realistic mid-term and short-term
experiences or enablements.

SHORT  
TERM
LONG  
TERM

•Scope down the idea:  
Other ideas may need to be scoped-down
into more realistic mid-term and short-term
experiences or enablements.

•Keep the idea in the long-term: 
Ideas that are not feasible in the short-term  
or that are not fundamental to the core user
experience can stay in the long-term column.

Storyboarding

Remember this? Big ideas?

What can your user’s new experience
feel like? What will their new story be?
•Each teammate makes their own storyboard.

•Tell a seamless story with a beginning, middle, and end. Imagine
your story with characters, a plot, conﬂict, and resolution.

•Keep it human-centered—focus on the user rather than on screens.

•Think “comic book.” Use speech and thought bubbles, action
bursts, captions, symbols, and narration.

•Use Sharpies! This keeps it at just the right level of ﬁdelity.

Converge and align as a group to create
one refined “master” storyboard.
•Choose the best parts of each teammate’s story and weave them into
one refined “master” storyboard that’s representative of the entire
team’s thinking.

•Stay at the same fidelity, but use more “panels” if you need them to tell
a complete, deep, and rich experience of your new user experience.

•Use a smartphone photo or a Ziggi-HD cam to project each group’s
story onto the screen and hold a round of Playbacks to share.

•Refer to the same questions as before to guide your discussion.

Activity: Storyboarding to diverge
What can your user’s new experience
feel like? What will their new story be?
•Each teammate makes their own storyboard.

•Tell a seamless story with a beginning, middle, and end. Imagine
your story with characters, a plot, conﬂict, and resolution.

•Keep it human-centered—focus on the user rather than on screens.

•Think “comic book.” Use speech and thought bubbles, action
bursts, captions, symbols, and narration.

•Use Sharpies! This keeps it at just the right level of ﬁdelity.

Before You Go!

Activity: Workshop Survey
Submit your feedback anonymously
Please  
color-code  
your  
responses:
The facilitator will  
collect your sticky notes.  
Thanks for the feedback!
Pink  
for your  
Low Point
Green  
for your  
High Point
Blue  
for your
Rating
VERY LIKELYNOT VERY LIKELY
Help us understand
what you think and feel
about this experience.
•High & Low Points: What have been the best and
worst parts of this experience? (The most/least
useful, enjoyable, valuable, productive, etc…)

•Rating: How likely are you to recommend using  
IBM Design Thinking to a colleague or friend?

Appendix

Pro Tips 
for Facilitators

Pro tips!
1. Wear a watch

2. Print/write an agenda for
everyone to reference

3. Have plenty of wall or table
space available

4. Set ground rules and enforce
them

5. Develop clear goals for the
session and communicate
them clearly

6. Ask participants to summarize
conversations or activities for  
the group

7. Make sure the work continues  
after the session

8. Never facilitate alone

9. Practice, practice, practice!

10. Breathe, breathe, breathe!

Wear a watch.
Pro tip 1

Pro tip 2
Print/write an agenda for
everyone to reference.

Pro tip 3
Have plenty of wall or  
table space available.

Pro tip 4
Set ground rules and
enforce them.

Pro tip 5
Develop clear goals for the
session and communicate
them clearly.

Pro tip 6
Ask participants to
summarize conversations  
or activities for the group.

Pro tip 7
Make sure the work
continues after the session.

Pro tip 8
Never facilitate alone.

Pro tip 9
Practice, practice, practice!

Pro tip 10
Breathe, breathe, breathe!

Resources for You

ibm.biz/
fieldguide-public

AIGA’s 
Facilitation  
by Design  
program
aiga.org/ 
facilitation-by-design
Photo: AIGA

The Skilled
Facilitator
Roger Schwarz

Crucial
Conversations
Kerry Patterson,  
Joseph Grenny,  
Ron McMillan,  
Al Switzler

Just Enough
Research
Erika Hall
Photo: AIGA Minnesota

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