1) The document discusses key takeaways from a course, including maintaining deadlines, having many potential solutions to challenges, and enjoying structured peer reviews and diverse community feedback. 2) It then describes how the author applied design thinking at their work, changing how they dialogue with prospects from focusing only on design elements to understanding client needs and challenges through empathy. 3) This led to a meeting doubling in length as they better understood the client, who then increased their project scope and budget four times the original amount.

1. REFLECTIONS
-Manukrishna Nair

2. 3 key takeaways from
this course

3. TAKEAWAY #1
“Tomorrow Is
Too Late”
The deadlines and “no two ways about it” for
submissions has affirmed by belief in maintaining the
deadline. Tomorrow is always too late; so what you can
do today, is good!

4. TAKEAWAY #2
“Solutions don’t
get exhausted”
When I started on my ideate & prototype I felt that the
challenge I took up couldn’t have a great solution. But a
structured thought process brought about 30 ideas
which I felt great about

5. TAKEAWAY #3
“Review Mechanism
+ community”
I loved how the rubrics for the Peer Review were
structured; these gives me ideas for implementation in
my own office. Also bringing diverse individuals together
into a common platform was fantastic!

6. MY PROCESS

8. APPLICATION

9. APPLYING DESIGN
THINKING @ WORK
“We changed the way
we dialogue with
prospects”…

10. BEFORE
We are a design firm; and It used to be, that when we met
prospects, they would come with a requirement of an element
of design (a new logo, for instance). Also, it was difficult to
clearly translate the clients needs (including unmet ones) from
a prospecting stage to the design team for a project
in-between
A couple of months ago, we repositioned our company and
brand and believed in bringing a more strategic approach
towards problem solving. Using Design Thinking tools we felt
lets approach the “initial dialogue” with prospects completely
differently.
So we prototyped a manual (on the same day of a new
business meeting) that captured the clients aspirations,
challenges using empathy!

11. the prototype

12. AFTER [the result]
What typically would be a 20-30 minute meeting, went on to
a 2 hour dialogue where we clearly understood the client’s
needs, wants and aspirations!
The result; a prospect who came with the idea of “designing
an element” signed up (a week later) on building a brand
experience and increased his budget 4x times!