Christian Muller-Roterberg

Article / Updated 08-01-2023

When it comes to work packages, you can illustrate your progress with the help of a task board; it’s a useful tool for communicating to everyone involved the extent of the project's progress. You can use this task board to differentiate on a timeline the various development stages of the design thinking project. The task board can show the progress of the entire project with the help of user stories. Sort such stories into just three stages: Ready, In Development, and Done. (You can use table columns to demarcate these stages.) Based on the progress, the individual user stories can be moved into the relevant column on a card or a sticky note. If there you find any problems with a particular work package (deadlines can’t be met or the work package requires more personnel, for example), stick a black dot on the card. You can find an example of a task board in the following figure. Write the name of each individual work package on a card, and sort them on the task board according to each development stage. You can choose different colors for technical and marketing work packages. The left column, labeled To Do, contains all work packages at the start of the project. Sort the cards in the order of their ranking, from top to bottom. (This ranking also lets you know which work packages have the best chances of being carried out.) When work packages are ready to process, the person in charge moves the work package card to the right, into the Ready column. When work has started, it’s moved to the In Progress column — under the In Development heading. The In Progress column should always hold a card in for each team member. If the processing has been completed successfully, the project manager can move the card to Developed. The Testing column follows. Each result of a work package should be tested from either a technical perspective or the customer’s viewpoint. Here, testing can represent a technical feasibility test for technical work packages, for example, or a customer survey if the work package relates to marketing. The Testing column can include the subcolumn In Test with work packages being executed. The person in charge of the work package moves the card into this column. When the test has been successfully completed, the project manager moves the card into the subcolumn Tested. Subsequently, the project manager moves the card to Done or Blocked. Done indicates that the contents of the work package have been completed and the conditions for satisfaction have been met. The Blocked column refers to a case where major issues have led you to stop the processing of this particular user story. Issues here might be a lack of resources (the person working on it might be absent due to illness) or technical errors in the processing. As a team, discuss the significance of the individual development stages before the project starts. Each team member must have the same understanding of what's involved. You should clarify to the team exactly what the stages Ready and Done mean for your task. The Ready status can be understood as follows: Everyone understands the contents of the work package. The dependencies to other work packages are recognized and pose no barriers to the processing. The team has the required skills and means for the execution. The effort in terms of time was estimated, which revealed that the work package could fit into the planned schedule. The criteria for the successful completion of the work package are clear, known to everyone, and verifiable. The team knows how to process the work package. You can describe the Done status as follows: All work is complete, or there is no further work. The work package was checked for completion according to the four-eyes principle — approved by at least two people, in other words The feasibility (for technical work packages) or the conditions for the customer’s satisfaction (for marketing-related work packages) has been met or was ensured with tests. No high-importance items remain open. The results are documented. The client or customer has accepted the work package. You can display the task board on a whiteboard or a metaplan wall and then place it in a work room so that everyone can always see the progress being made. The daily meetings can take place in this room, and the cards can be moved according to the latest status. In addition to the task board, you can document items that still need to be clarified on an open-items list (a to-do list, in other words) and track them. The open-items list should include the following aspects: Serial number: A number that makes it easy to quickly record the work packages. Name: A short name for the open item; can refer to the structure of the project and can mirror your chosen name for the work packages Date: The day on which the open item was reported Person notifying: The person who placed this open item on the list. Urgency: Rated as High, Medium, or Low Person-in-charge: The person who has to clarify the open item Collaboration with: A list of persons or departments that have to be involved in the clarification process Resource expenditure: An estimate of the expenditure for the personnel, equipment, or investment capital needed to clarify the open item Done: Describes the condition at which the open item has been clarified By when: The deadline by which the open item must be clarified Status: The current status of the clarification; can range from Open to In Progress to Done. By using the task board and open-items list, you’re providing a comprehensive overview of the project’s progress and encouraging the project team to share information. Each team member is informed about the status of the total project, the state of each work package, and any problems that occur.

Article / Updated 03-12-2021

The Personal method is one of the ways in which you can systematically collect information about the people and situations you’re interested in (your targets) and methodically evaluate that information. In design thinking, with the Persona method, you fictitiously assume the role of a customer or user who represents members of a real customer or user group. You can apply this method in the development of ideas or business models as well as in the configuration of marketing activities. The Persona technique can be used to establish distance to yourself while also creating proximity to the customer. In other words, this approach orients you to the customer. Direct your next steps toward this person and, according to this persona, choose the individual needs that you want to focus on. The Persona method also makes it possible to increase awareness of customer needs among employees — in the areas of research, development, and production, for example — without frequent customer contact. Everyone is in the know when it comes to what the persona is supposed to be like, so each and every employee can put themselves in the situation of that individual person. The customer is no longer seen as an anonymous object in an undefined mass, but gets a real character and is thus “brought to life.” Furthermore, you can apply this method inexpensively and combine it with other approaches. The selected person for the persona represents a fictitious person with individual characteristics that stand for the target users — or at least for some of them. Rather than configure an average persona, concentrate on coming up with various personas with distinct, unique specifications. The informational yield for an average persona lacks distinctiveness, offering little in the area of fresh ideas for actual innovations. Represent the different personas carrying out different functions in the buying process. For example, you could include A persona representing a certain target segment A first-time buyer Extreme users (ones who use products often or under special conditions) Nonbuyers (negative persona) Customer and user personae The Persona method can also be used in the business-to-business (B2B) area by differentiating decision makers, influencers, or possible saboteurs as the persona. To get the Persona process started, take a sheet of paper and write up a description of the person in the form of a short profile that makes heavy use of keywords. (Another option is to write short sentences on larger sticky notes and arrange them in an order that works for you. Whatever method you choose, it helps if you assign this persona a specific name.) You shouldn’t reduce the persona to a single characteristic, which is often done in traditional market research, as part of the customer segmentation. You should describe the person holistically in their entire personal environment. A (fictitious) quote or slogan by this persona can start off the description. The figure shows a fully fleshed-out persona. The following biographical information can describe this person: Gender, age, origin, family status (married or single; children? How many? How old? What parenting style?) Profession (job, position), educational background, special knowledge, expert on a specific topic Friends and social environment, pets Living conditions (own house versus condominium versus rented apartment or shared apartment, as well as type, design, quality, and furnishings of the home) Asset status Attitudes (values, interests, preferences), frustration tolerance, awareness of health, life goals Hobbies and leisure activities (Athletic? Which sport? How often?) How much time does the persona have for particular topics or activities? Which media and information sources does it use for which topics? Attitude toward digital media (User of social networks or more of a loner? Likes to share information with others openly?) Consumption habits or factors that influence buying decisions: How fast is the buying decision made? Is this a spontaneous buyer, or is there a tendency to plan? Which information channels does it use? Price-, quality-, or service-oriented? Brand awareness? It’s also a good idea to analyze the problems (pains) and wishes (gains) of this persona — for example, with the following questions: What annoys or frustrates the persona? What problems does it have? What are the persona’s challenges in life? What does the persona consider too expensive, too inconvenient, too time-consuming, too inferior, not user-friendly enough, or too complex? What makes it angry? What risks does it fear? What would the persona be embarrassed about in front of friends? What are its frequent mistakes? What can’t the persona do? What kinds of opposition does it face? What are the persona's needs? What does it desire? What does it dream about? What are its goals in life? What are its (buying) motives? What kinds of sale offers does this persona need? What would it expect from such an offer? What would make the persona’s life easier? What would make it happy? What would inspire it? What would make it admired by others? These questions can be adapted specifically for the problem under investigation and expanded as well. You should outline the answers in keywords on a sheet of paper. It also helps if you describe the persona and its problems or wishes in a personal way and in a personal form. The persona should be updated continuously because problems and desires tend to change over the course of a design thinking project. Bring the persona to life. Give the persona a catchy name that suits the character. Use small drawings to visualize the persona and its environment. Outline what it looks like with its family, when it's indulging in its favorite hobby, or when it performs certain actions and uses particular objects.

Article / Updated 05-31-2020

Part of the design thinking process is making your ideas very clear and tangible. You can easily and quickly create a prototype of your idea on paper, on a whiteboard, or on an electronic device (laptop, smartphone, tablet) with drawings and photo collages. You can outline the product design; drawings of the functions and characteristics of your idea are also possible. Images from books, magazines, newspapers, advertising brochures, catalogs, or the Internet can all be used for photo collages to illustrate your idea. Show your drawing or photo collage to potential customers for five seconds, and then ask them what they can recall and what impression it made on them. The prototypical drawings and images are indispensable at an early stage of the product development. In addition to two-dimensional drawings and images, you can use simple model designs made of paper, cardboard, modeling clay, Styrofoam, or other foam materials to illustrate or mimic certain functions or characteristics of your idea. The use of 3D printers makes it possible to manufacture impressive prototypes with little effort. Telling stories Tell a tale or perform a story about the use of a product so that you get feedback about its usefulness and ease of use along with suggestions for improvements. With storytelling, you vividly use the narrative format to depict the usefulness or utility of your idea as a real or fictitious story. Storytelling can be used as a prototype test so that you can graphically explain your idea to customers and ask for feedback. It may be difficult to understand new ideas for products, services, and business models that don’t exist yet — storytelling is an appropriate method in these cases. People like stories, and this allows them to easily relate to your idea. Stories awaken human curiosity, entertain people, and increase attentiveness. Don’t mix up storytelling in design thinking and an advertising campaign for a mature product. In this early phase, you don’t want to sell anything with the story about your idea. This is all about evaluating your idea with the help of customer feedback and receiving options for improvement. Openly communicate to the customer the goals intended with the story. The potential customers or users will talk more readily and honestly when they know that this isn’t a sales pitch. Your story doesn’t have to be perfect. Ask the customer whether something is missing or should be improved. First describe the story’s central message in simple words. The customer should be able to relate to the situation while using your product and understand the special benefit of your idea. The answers to the following questions will help you find a key message: Who is the target user for the message? What kind of feedback do you want to get from the customer? You’re sure to call up positive emotions on the part of the customer by describing the benefits of using your idea. People search for rewards in stories. In the story, describe how your idea will give the customer a reward. Rewards can be shown in three ways: A feeling of safety and security: People want to overcome fear and uncertainty. They look for consistency, stability, and compensation. They long for commitment, caring, home, and tradition. A sense of stimulation: People look for new stimuli. They want to be active and break out of their routines. Rather than be bored, people look for pleasure, fun, excitement, and diversity or surprises. A sense of status and superiority: People strive to show achievements. They want to enjoy success and superiority, prevail against others, and expand their territories. That’s why people aim to avoid defeat, annoyance, anger, and dissatisfaction. Use a typical customer or user as the protagonist of the story. Give the protagonist a name. The situation, time, and place can influence the plot. Describe them if they’re significant. Apply the Persona method to characterize the protagonist of your story — their age, appearance, characteristics, and behavior along with their values and preferences. At the beginning of your story, introduce the protagonist, place, and situation. Then build up suspense by describing the problem, deficiency, or challenge from the perspective of your protagonist. The solution of the conflict consists of alternatives that can be chosen. Briefly describe the available alternatives and their disadvantages or weaknesses. Things take a turn for the better with the introduction of your idea, which you’ll describe in vivid terms. The story finishes with a happy ending — the positive solution, starring your idea with its special advantages. Your idea is the hero of the story that solves the customer’s problem, remedies the deficiency, or helps master the challenge of your target users. When you have told the story to your potential customer, ask for feedback using the following questions: Is this story your story? Is it different from yours? If yes, how so? What would you add to or omit from this story? Did you like the story? Why? Which advantages do you expect from the idea? Would you want to use the idea? What do you perceive with this idea? The story enables improved communication with the customer. You’ll notice an additional benefit: You too will better understand your idea if you describe it in the form of a story by using simple and clear language. You will detect flaws in your idea and gaps in the presentation about the benefits of using your idea, which in the end will help you market your idea. Visualizing stories A story pinboard (storyboarding and visual storytelling are other terms for the same concept) is a method for vividly depicting your story. Walt Disney originally used a story pinboard for film productions. The story is schematically outlined with drawings of individual scenes. The storyboard — with its depiction of the protagonist, the situation, the problems met, and the approaches taken to overcome them — should comprise a maximum of eight scenes. Figure 13-1 depicts a scheme for storyboarding. Outline the individual scenes with the plot activities in boxes the size of index cards or sticky notes. The sketch consists of just a few elements: surroundings, characters (customers, customer advisors), speech bubbles, thought bubbles, and relevant items (laptop, mobile phone, devices, furnishings). A drawn clock can show the respective time. No artistic skills are needed, because this isn’t about drawing perfectly. Use stick figures and simple symbols (emojis). Show the storyboard to the customer and then ask for a response related to the following questions: Does the storyboard outline the customer’s problems and activities realistically? Are the activities misrepresented? Are the functions and characteristics of the idea useful for the customer? Are the advantages of using the idea comprehensible and clear? Is there a need for improving the idea? Individual scenes of the storyboard may be incomplete. Ask the customer to complete them. Thought bubbles in the storyboards can be kept blank so that customers can use them to enter their thoughts and feelings, such as joy, annoyance, or confusion. In addition to using the narrative form, you can make a video of the story depicting the advantages of your idea. This makes your idea more vivid. You can find several software solutions online under the search term explanatory videos, which allow you to create videos or comics for these purposes by yourself without needing any background knowledge. You’ll use the storyboard to create a screenplay that summarizes the plot of your story in individual scenes. Performing stories Role-playing games allow you to perform your story realistically in ways that illustrate the advantages of your idea. As a result, you and the customer can relate better to the role or situation in which your idea will be used. Role-playing games are a particularly good choice for services. Various types of customers and employees can take on different roles. You can perform the role-playing game realistically when you use costumes, props, furnishings, and devices. Afterward, the audience as potential customers and participants in the role-playing game can evaluate what they felt and how they experienced the situation, why which actions were performed, and whether one could have acted differently. An observer can also take notes and photos or make a video of the role-playing game. You can also perform the stories or situations with Lego figures and blocks. Service ideas can be depicted with successions of individual Lego scenes. This improves clarity so that you and your customer can approach your idea for the solution from another perspective and avoid tunnel vision. Using digital prototypes Wireframes can be used to depict pictorial representations of operating elements or buttons that will later be used on a website or on displays, electronic devices, or other projection screens. The operating elements or buttons are depicted only in schematic drawings and are meant to show the position and size of symbols or text in the form of placeholders. “Lorem ipsum” texts, which are filler texts without meaningful content, are often used as placeholders. This is a simple option for internal development to quickly fill and structure a presentation with text blocks. Avoid texts like this when you perform experiments, or else you will confuse the customer. Formulate short, correct texts — ones that won’t take much additional effort. Either draw the wireframes by hand, make them out of paper, or create them digitally with the appropriate software. The customer can change the position and size of the operating elements and symbols. Wireframes can also be clickable in the form of a simple website. By clicking on a button or symbol, users access additional pages or functions. You can minimize your effort by making clickable only those symbols that you want to test. The unfinished templates can motivate the customers more than perfectly designed templates, because this will give them the sense that their feedback can have an effect at an early stage. Don’t use any simplified versions of the prototype — ones in which someone is prompted to click a button on a website, only for them to be notified that the offer is in development (under construction) or where they see the Page Not Found error message. This fake door web page, or 404 page, though often used to test the customer’s general interest, isn’t something you should be pursuing. It only annoys the users; particularly, those potential customers who could recommend your offer later. You can use extensively designed websites known as mock-ups. In a mock-up, you use the typography, colors, and symbols as they could be visualized in the later design. The basic structure for all the control elements is displayed without being fully functional. During a large conference in San Francisco, the founders of Airbnb initially offered their own, private apartments for short-term rent and placed photos of their apartments on a simple website. That way, they tested whether there could be, in principle, an interest in inexpensive short stays outside of hotels. You can use entire websites as digital prototypes. Create a website on which you introduce your ideas, and evaluate the user behavior on this web page. The Buffer app makes it possible to schedule messages on different social networks, such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn. The messages can thus be published at particular times of the day or at preset intervals. The prototype was a website (landing page) on which the features were presented and where interested visitors could register for initial use. The founder, Joel Gascoigne, programmed the app only after there were enough registrations. The first version could be used only for Twitter. Nine months later, the app had reached more than 100,000 users. Mobilize visitors to your website by informing your social contacts via email or executing marketing campaigns by means of search engine optimization, advertising, or partner programs (affiliate programs). This landing page describes either only the problem or a possible solution. Depending on the development status, the website visitors can partially try out the offered product or service. Users of this website can register with their contact details. In turn, they receive more information, a newsletter, or an email message when the product is available. The registration is used to measure the conversion rate — how many of the visitors become active prospective buyers, in other words. You can evaluate the behavior of your website visitors by using different key performance indicators, such as the number of visitors, pages visited, or length of visit. Demonstrating instead of presenting When you’re dealing with a concierge minimum viable product, a customer order is executed manually for the test phase with the intention of automating it later. Before a time- or cost-intensive (perfect) automated technical solution is created, the idea is fundamentally tested by the customer. The manual processing of individual customer orders may be complicated, but there is a high learning effect. You learn how to implement the process as well as what the customer demands and is willing to pay. Based on its user’s food preferences, the Internet platform Food on Your Table creates recipes with shopping lists based on current supermarket offers. The prototype consisted of its founder, Manuel Rosso, approaching potential customers from his circle of friends and manually creating recipes and shopping lists for them each week. He learned so much from his own observations that he later automated the process through an online offer. The Wizard of Oz minimum viable product has the same approach as the concierge minimum viable product, but here the customers don’t know that there’s a manual process in the background. The customers think that their orders are mostly automated. Just as in the classic movie The Wizard of Oz, whatever is happening happens behind a screen, so to speak. The approach is this: "Fake it @@'til you make it." In 2008, Groupon was just a blog that presented coupon offers; as soon as enough buyers wanted the offer, they were contacted personally by email with the coupon in PDF format. The buyers didn’t notice these manual activities in the background. Only later did the entire process become automated. In the 1980s, IBM had already used this principle to test the question of whether there’s a market for transcriptions of voice messages by computers with letter-specific precision. This wasn’t yet technologically possible at the time. IBM presented a computer with a microphone at a trade fair, where visitors could see their spoken words promptly as a text on the screen. But this was a bluff: The microphone signal was transferred into an adjacent room, where someone typed it into a computer. The first chess computer in the world was a Wizard of Oz prototype. In 1769 in Austria, an automaton was introduced that consisted of a life-size figure in front of a chessboard. The hands of the figure mechanically moved the chess pieces. This chess computer played against people at events and captivated the audience. No computers existed at that time. Inside the chess computer was a small person who moved the pieces and was a good chess player. You can find several online platforms for the inexpensive creation of technical prototypes with the help of hardware or software modules. They offer standard modules for particular applications with sensor systems, motion generators, displays, and software solutions. Some of these offers are open-source programs that you can use for your experiments for free. You can take a further step with rapid prototyping, which is composed of different production processes based on your design data and is intended for the fast creation of prototypes. Mature prototypes can be developed with the use of 3D printers or laser cutters.

Article / Updated 05-31-2020

Creativity techniques used in design thinking can be divided into methods that are intuitive-creative or systematic-analytical. By applying the intuitive-creative techniques, usually in a group, you can stimulate spontaneous ideas, associations, and analogous conclusions in order to overcome mental blocks in the form of a much freer configuration. Intuitive techniques are particularly suited for problems that are tough to solve as well as for tasks that are still unclear. Not every technique designed to improve creativity is suitable for every question and for every team. Creativity is highly individualistic: Everyone has their own experiences, habits, preferences, strengths, and weaknesses. This is why you should experiment with various techniques for spurring creativity and test multiple techniques in a team. Avoid using the same methods all the time. In any workshop, vary the use of creativity techniques frequently. Ideally, you combine different techniques in order to get new impulses for the generation of ideas. The principles of decomposition and abstraction are increasingly used in systematic-analytical techniques. If you want to improve products with a modular structure or solve technical problems, systematic-analytical creativity techniques are recommended. Two helpful systematic-analytical methods that you can combine with brainstorming are mind-mapping and the morphological box, as described next. Structuring the topic with mind-mapping Mind maps are graphical representations of a problem and the various aspects of its solution. The problem or question is written down in the center of a large sheet of paper or on a white board, and the solutions are spread out over the entire surface. The idea is to write down the topic or question in a cloud in the center of the sheet, as shown in Figure 10-2. Branches that divide and fan out from the topic into different areas emerge from the cloud. When you develop a culture of innovation, these areas are strategy, leadership, processes, structure, and competencies. Keywords are written on the branches. The main branches represent the top themes. Details are written on the twigs. Make the mind map even more expressive by using color, images, or symbols. After creating a mind map, you can summarize the branches and twigs again, or you can combine branches that hadn’t been connected before. Specifically search for missing branches or twigs so that you can detect gaps in your problem-solving process or your generation of ideas. There are also software programs for mind-mapping. You should note the following rules for mind-mapping: Only use nouns Write in block letters Use symbols (arrows, emojis, figures) and images Write the labels horizontally for legibility Use W-questions for the structuring (Who? What? Where? Whereby? When? Why?) Systematically finding solutions with a morphological box With a morphological box, you first mentally break down a product, process, service, or your entire business model into its components or functions. You then search for different characteristic forms for each component or function. These variants are combined in order to generate new ideas for solutions. The creative approach of the morphological box is shown in the following figure, with the example of an alarm clock. In the first column, write down the individual functions of an alarm clock, such as the alarm itself, the alarm reminder, or the setting of the wake-up time. For each of these functions, think about how you might express this function differently. You can generate an alarm signal by ringing a bell, playing music, making an announcement, shaking an object thoroughly, shining a bright light, or changing the temperature. Then combine the different characteristic forms of the individual functions with each other. You can use the morphological box for more than just technical devices. Imagine that you want to write a thriller. A thriller has a perpetrator, a motive, a victim, a detective, a witness, a crime scene, a time of the crime, and other characteristics. Then list how you would realize each individual component. The perpetrator can be a professor, a book author, a soccer player, a butcher, or a gardener. These are the characteristic forms of the perpetrator component. In the end, combine the selected characteristic forms of the various components with each other. Your screenplay for a new thriller is complete!

Article / Updated 05-31-2020

When targeting potential customers during the design thinking process, it's important to figure out the customer journey. For the customer journey, imagine which steps a potential customer (preferably, in the form of a concrete persona) experiences before, during, and after using a product or service. Create a description of the target person using the Persona method, and supplement it with an empathy map. You can also use different personae in order to work out differences and special aspects of the customer journey. Potential target persons might include Personae in a certain target segment First-time buyers Extreme users (who use products often or under special conditions) Nonbuyers Customers or users Decision makers in the buying process Influencers of the purchasing behavior Potential saboteurs during the sales process With the help of information from surveys, observations, or records of sales, or from your own experiences, customer satisfaction analyses, or a brainstorming session, summarize the phases of a customer journey with keywords on sticky notes. First provide a rough description of the phases. (You can describe the phases — especially that of consumption – in more detail later.) The following figure shows you the steps involved in acquiring hotel accommodations as an example of a customer journey. Keep in mind that there can be different customer journeys, depending on the target person, or that different target persons can have individually distinct customer journeys. Create separate customer journeys for different people and compare them afterward. In many cases, it was only this step — creating separate customer journeys — that led me to find interesting differences. Describing the phases of the customer journey In the first phase, give a detailed description of how a customer becomes aware of a need, a problem, or an offer. Summarize how the customer gathers information about wishes, about a solution to a problem, or about an offer. Address how the customer compares one offer with another. Imagine that you were looking at the customer journey for a hotel accommodation. A person — let’s call him Fred from Hamburg — becomes aware of a Rolling Stones concert in Munich. He gets this information from an online ad on an information portal about rock music. Online, Fred gets information about the Stones appearance, about Munich, and about the possibilities of traveling to Munich and spending a night there. Excited about the prospect, he views hotel offers on a hotel comparison portal and initially compares them only superficially. In the second phase of the customer journey, a decision is made. Examine how and by whom or through what the customer is positively or negatively influenced during his buying decision. You should also ask the basic question of why the customers make a selection. Based on recommendations from friends, Fred is seriously considering only a few hotels in downtown Munich. He compares them in terms of the location and the price-performance ratio. A quiet location, good and inexpensive transport access, and a well-equipped fitness area in the hotel are important factors in Fred’s decision. He ultimately decides on a hotel based on the recommendation of a friend. In the fourth phase, explore everything that happens during the use of the product or service. Analyze what potential customers experience step-by-step when they use a service or product. You should describe this phase quite specifically and in some detail. Every step, every activity, every move, and every thought should be analyzed individually. Fred travels to Munich and takes the subway to his hotel. Because he doesn’t find any signs for the hotel at the subway station, he wants to use his smartphone for navigation. The battery on his smartphone is dead, which means he has to ask pedestrians for directions. Mildly annoyed, Fred finally finds the hotel. No one is at the reception desk. A half-hour later, an unfriendly receptionist receives him. Fred wants to get dinner at the hotel before the concert. Because Fred is a vegetarian, his only choice is between potato salad and potato soup. The next morning, Fred goes to have breakfast at the hotel: pork fat with cracklings, beer cheese dip, and mashed potato spread with a fresh pretzel and a peasant loaf — not quite a “selection” to Fred’s taste. After being unable to pay with a credit card, Fred hastily leaves the hotel. The last phase, the after-sales phase, focuses on the customer’s activities after he has had some experiences with the product or service. Describe the customer’s needs, tasks, or expectations in the after-sales phase. The question of how and by whom or what means the customer can be motivated to make another purchase is of particular interest to you. You shouldn’t underestimate the fact that the customer will use word-of-mouth communication to share these experiences with the product or services. Check how and by whom or by what means the customer is persuaded to report a positive buying experience. Look at where (on the Internet, at home, or in the office) and on which occasions the customer will report about the experiences. Fred has returned to Hamburg. First, he tells his friend who recommended the hotel in Munich to him all about his experiences in Munich. Although he has never reviewed products or services on the Internet, he talks extensively about his bad experiences with the hotel on the hotel comparison portal, which he also used to book the hotel. On the same day after submitting his review online, the hotel contacts him directly by email via the comparison portal. The hotel owner apologizes sincerely to Fred and invites him to a weekend in Munich, including a first-class trip by train. In each phase of the customer journey, ask yourself the following questions: What does the persona want here? What does it want to achieve? What does it do, or (surprisingly) what doesn’t it do? How does it try to achieve its goals or wishes? What does it use for this purpose, and in what order? With whom is the persona in contact? Where are the contact points — the touchpoints, in other words — with the company? How long does each of the contacts with the company last? How long are the individual customer journey phases in total? The problems (and improvements) in the customer journey The touchpoints are particularly important in the customer journey — these are places, occasions, or moments during which people come in contact with the product, brand, or company in the broadest sense. Touchpoints could be something in control of the company, such as advertisements, television or radio commercials, brochures, catalogs, flyers, trade fairs and events, customer hotlines, call centers, mailed items, personal advice, points of sale, store furnishings, an Internet presence, or online advertising (emails, newsletters, banners, e-shops, landing pages, and company/product blogs). Additionally, you have to take into account the touchpoints that can’t be influenced yet, or only indirectly, such as family members, acquaintances, friends of the target person, social media networks, reports in newspapers, magazines, forums, blogs, comparison websites, or rating portals. You should analyze each touchpoint with the following questions: Which touchpoints are particularly effective from the customer’s perspective — and which aren’t? To what degree does each touchpoint positively influence the customer experience? Are the possible touchpoints coordinated with each other throughout the customer journey? How do your own employees rate the individual touchpoints in terms of effort compared to benefit? Are there touchpoints that offer few customer benefits but are complex? Are there too many touchpoints that confuse the customer? Which touchpoints do your competitors have? Which ones do they not have? Why or why not? Are there enough touchpoints throughout the customer journey? Where are the gaps? Which additional contact points could be created for the customer? What can be automated, and how? In addition to analyzing the touchpoints, you should look at all steps in the customer journey and uncover potential problems for the customer. The customer might recognize these problems or not be aware of them yet. Pay particular attention to negative emotions. Here are examples of problems or negative emotions: The customer is annoyed. The customer is unpleasantly surprised by the price or costs. The customer doesn’t know what to do in a certain situation. The customer performs the activity incorrectly. The customer tries to solve the problem on their own. The customer has to wait and thus loses time. The customer performs unnecessary activities (waste). The customer is disappointed by the quality. The customer considers the situation or activity too complicated. The customer considers the situation or activity not user-friendly enough. The customer worries about risks or feels uncertain about the outcome. The customer is embarrassed in front of others. These problems or negative emotions can be evaluated and selected in terms of their significance (extent, frequency of occurrence) and analyzed according to their cause. Customer satisfaction is assessed for each phase and each step in a phase — a process that can be summarized in what is referred to as a customer experience map. How does the persona feel? (In working out the map, feel free to use simple symbols, such as various emojis.) In addition, you can identify the key moments of truth for each phase or step. These are moments or situations that are particularly important for the customer. Different moments of truth are located along the customer journey: The first moment of truth: When the customer first becomes aware of the product or service The second moment of truth: When the customer is actually using the product or service and is evaluating the product or service based on the customer's quality standards of the moment The third moment of truth: When the customer has a positive, neutral, or negative feeling or experience after using the product or service You can also add these: The zero moment of truth (the moment of truth before starting): When the customer first perceives a problem or need through a suggestion or an impulse (such as advertising) and searches for or compares information about possible solutions The ultimate moment of truth: When the customer tells others about their experiences and feelings about the product or service (through social networks, review portals, or virtual communities, for example) You can combine the customer journey with the customer-benefits matrix method in order to develop possibilities of improving each phase or step. The following questions will give you suggestions for answers: Where can you simplify something for customers? How can you provide more benefits to your customers? Where can you reduce or minimize risks for your customers? Is it possible to integrate more fun and entertainment? What would inspire your customers? The following figure shows the entire analysis grid for a customer journey. You can use a variant of the customer journey when you outline a day in the life of a customer. By dividing the journey into 15- or 30-minute blocks of time, for example, you can ask the following questions using the sample of a specific person: Where and how does the persona spend the day? Which products or services does it use? How much time does it spend using the product? How would the life of the persona change after it receives its product? How often is the persona online? Does it use a PC, laptop, tablet, or smartphone? Which devices does the customer use, when, and how often? In addition to activities in the household and leisure time, you can focus on a typical workday. The customer journey, particularly the variant “a day in the life of the customer,” can be supplemented by not only a keyword description but also images, cartoons, and videos to visualize the information and make it more illustrative.

Article / Updated 05-31-2020

When targeting your customers in the design thinking process, you can use empathy to understand who your customer is and what they want. With an empathy map, you can holistically put yourself into the role of a person or a group faced by certain situations. Imagine a specific person in their natural environment. This situation can be an everyday activity (a shopping spree, for example, or using a certain electronic device, taking part in household activities, surfing the Internet, or engaging in travel, leisure, or cultural activities), which the person should look at from different perspectives. Using the example of a specific person in this situation, ask the following questions and answer them in keywords on sticky notes. You can stick your answers on the notes onto a poster with a diagram similar to the one you see here. First, find out what the person you’re observing is feeling or thinking. The key question is what does the person think and feel in this situation? This gives you a good impression about what drives and motivates the person. Other questions can be helpful, too: What does this person want or desire? What does this person not want? What does this person think of while doing the activity? Which emotions often play a role in how they act? Imagine that your target person is a pregnant woman strolling through a shopping center with her 4-year-old daughter. Let's call her Sabine, and her daughter, Charlotte. Sabine made a long shopping list beforehand. She feels stressed (quite natural, given her condition), and shopping with Charlotte is always a challenge. As a pregnant woman, she is of the opinion that she shouldn't have to walk a lot in the shopping center and that a restroom should always also be nearby. Sabine wants the shopping to be as relaxed as possible. Charlotte feels bored and wants to visit the playground. Every person is always actively dealing with the outside world. Now you have to analyze what that individual says and does in this environment. You can characterize her behavior and actions more precisely with the following questions: What does this person say to others, and what is she doing? What can be observed about this person? What behavior is she displaying? What are some of the quotes, key terms, or statements often used by this person? Which modes of behavior and activities does this person often engage in? Sabine often calls out to her daughter, who is running around the shopping center like crazy. In each individual store she visits, she always quickly looks for a salesperson and addresses her directly. The consultations with the salespersons are repeatedly interrupted by Charlotte. The next question you have to answer is what does the person hear in this situation and environment. Here you analyze what the target person hears (noise, advertising messages, information) as well as how and by whom this person is influenced — talks with relatives, friends, and colleagues at work, for example, or information on the radio, TV, or Internet. Here are some other questions: What do the family members, friends, or colleagues say to the person? What should she do or not do? Which communication channels are relevant here? Sabine still remembers the many pieces of advice from her girlfriends and her twin sister about all the things she has to buy before the second child arrives — a second high chair, a new stroller, baby clothes in sky blue, and pillows in various sizes. Charlotte is growing increasingly whiney. It doesn't help that it's also very loud at the shopping center. In addition to music, each store plays promotions, which she hardly registers. Next, describe the person’s specific environment in the examined situation (during the course of the day, at work, at home, while shopping, during a recreational activity). In other words, what does the person see in the specific situation? You can describe the situation or surroundings more specifically by asking the following questions: What do the surroundings look like? Which visual impressions is she getting in this situation? Which offers is she seeing or not seeing? What does she see others doing? Sabine permanently sees advertising in various forms. Today, she has an eye only for baby clothes. She purposefully looks for special offers. She watches other mothers take care of their children while shopping. Sabine keeps looking at the clock while shopping, and this distracts her so that Charlotte always manages to break free. A decisive question is what kinds of problems or what frustrations this person has or will develop in the particular situation. Here the person’s frustration is in the spotlight. At this point, write down which problems, worries, fears, obstacles, and urgent needs are confronted by this person. The following questions supplement your analysis: What are the risks that the person feels confronted by? What does the person try to avoid? Sabine permanently has an eye on where the nearest restroom is. She hopes that Charlotte isn’t too bored and won’t disturb her while shopping. She worries that she is forgetting something. She is increasingly under time pressure because she has to be home no later than noon. She is annoyed that she can’t quickly find her way around the individual stores. In conclusion, look at the positive aspects. Think about what makes an individual happy in this situation. Here the focus is on pleasure. The answers here will give you starting points for finding ideas later. This can be approached with the help of the following questions: Which goals is Sabine pursuing? What is she striving for? What does she want to achieve? How does she measure her success? How does she try to be successful? Sabine would be happy if she could occasionally sit down as she makes her way through the stores. Play areas in the individual stores for her daughter Charlotte would also be a relief. She would be especially pleased if she could count on a calm and relaxed atmosphere. Write down the answers in key words and group them into the diagram for an empathy map. Keep the target person at the center — the one you describe using the Persona method.

Article / Updated 05-31-2020

An essential element in the design thinking approach is that you develop a thorough understanding of the task and situation before you look for creative ideas for products, services, procedures, or business models. Don’t rush into things and immediately search for solutions for something that you haven’t really worked through yet. Give this analysis of the tasks all the time it needs. Separating the analysis of the task from the search for solutions to the task is a success factor. When you know and understand the details and reasons for the problems or desires of a particular target group, it will be much easier for you to find ideas designed to solve those problems or fulfill those wishes. In many cases, you already find the initial approaches to innovative ideas during the fundamental analysis. When analyzing your task, systematically work through the six W questions: What? Whereby? Who? Where? When? Why? On this basis, you’ll develop assumptions about the cause of the problem or desire and test these assumptions with your target users. In addition to getting a detailed task description, this gives you initial insights about possible solutions. When you work through the individual W questions, you can compare the task with a case in which the problem or desire (surprisingly) doesn’t occur. This case can be similar or come from a different area (different target users, another scientific field, or an external industry, for example). Afterward, perform a systematic check of what is different and what is the same in your task and the comparison case. Clarifying what the task is and how it manifests itself For the first step, you have to clarify exactly what the task consists of. The task can be a desire of (or problem faced by) a particular target group. Problems reveal themselves when something occurs differently than expected or desired. Describe these expectations or wishes and compare them with the actual situation. The expectations can also relate to an ideal condition that hasn’t been achieved yet. Also scrutinize the expectations and wishes to see to what extent they might just be subjective or shared by only a few people. When you compare the ideal condition with the current situation, you can systematically find gaps that you'd be able to close with new products, services, processes, or business models. Ideal means that something creates high usefulness (high quality and reliability, good design, user-friendliness, convenience) or reduces a disadvantage (cost and risk reduction, lower consumption of resources, time savings) for the target users. A fully automated, intelligent, and solar-powered lawnmower can describe an ideal condition. Compile all the information and describe what you know about the problem. From this you can detect what in turn you don’t know or understand. Write down the gaps in your knowledge in one sentence: for example, “We must clarify how often an error appears while operating a device” or “We must clarify how to increase customer loyalty for our service.” With an eye toward the solution, you should check which efforts were already made in the past to solve the problem. If it’s a technical problem, you can get information in literature databases or with a patent search. The persons affected by the problem can give you information about the solutions that have been used so far. Ask the persons involved why these solutions failed or why they’re unsatisfactory. As part of this process, you'll also clarify which elements are absolutely mandatory for a satisfactory solution. Follow this stage by asking yourself what is not necessary, or at least not important, about the solution. The search for what doesn’t constitute the problem goes in a similar direction. Ask older people about their behavior when they use smartphones. It is shown that, on average, only three or four features are actually being used. A smartphone with even more features, therefore, can’t be the objective. Find out whether there’s anything related to the task that you may not change or that is absolutely required. A technical product must have certain material characteristics, or a children’s toy may consist only of elements that don’t pose a health risk. A financial consultation requires a signed privacy policy, even if this seems unnecessary and time-intensive to the customer. However, note that these requirements can change over time. The security conditions related to self-driving cars will certainly change in the future along with the technical progress. After clarifying what the problem or wish is, describe in detail how, exactly, these requirements are shown. A problem or wish can refer to quality issues, service, design, image, user-friendliness, convenience, security, usage period, price, or environmental or social compatibility. You can develop an electric scooter that is reliable, robust, comfortable, compact, easy to use, stylish, and cheap and has a long usage period. Focus on a few significant characteristics of the problem or wish. Some requirements can also contradict each other. In many cases, it’s difficult to manufacture a high-quality product consisting of high-grade materials in an inexpensive way. However, your tasks could lie precisely in resolving this contradiction. Clarifying who has the problem or wish Who has the problem or the wish is important information about the task. Some tasks are theoretically relevant to many people. Smart-home solutions that improve the home quality through networked and remote-controlled devices and systems are certainly interesting to many people. It has proven to be expedient to make a selection at this early stage of the design thinking process. Older people or those with physical disabilities can particularly benefit from smart-home systems, for example. However, this group will have special requirements regarding the operability and functionality that you have to focus on. You can initially limit the group of persons by describing who isn’t affected by the problem or doesn’t have a desire for a solution to the present task. From the remaining group, I recommend that you focus on the target users for whom the solution to the task has a certain relevance and urgency. The following questions will help you decide: Who is most annoyed by the problem? Who might benefit most from a solution? Who can save money or time with a solution? Who needs a solution as soon as possible? Who is most dissatisfied with the alternatives available on the market? Who would pay the most for the solution? At this early stage, you shouldn’t view the relevance of (and urgency for) the task too narrowly. You already achieve a lot when you can roughly distinguish the groups of people according to the relevance and urgency related to the task. In the subsequent design thinking phases, you'll increasingly get information about the target users you selected at the beginning. You'll also continue to narrow your selection. Ask yourself for whom the solution might be useful outside of your selected target group. This group of persons isn’t initially in focus, but as you develop the solution, it may be revealed that this group in particular has a special interest in the found solution and will quickly adopt the new product or new service after the market launch. In addition to looking at the groups of persons interested in the result of your search for a solution, you should use this phase to look for people who can contribute to this search. You can query these people in the later phases of the design thinking process or integrate them into joint workshops. Some people may not be interested in the solution or will deliberately or unintentionally stand in the way of the solution. For your further analysis, and particularly for the subsequent implementation of your proposed solution, it’s helpful for you to also become aware of and characterize these people. You can characterize the individual relevant groups with the Persona method. A persona represents a fictitious person with individual characteristics that stand for the target users (or some of them) for whatever innovation you have in mind. In a study profile, describe the characteristics of this person (age, gender, education level, values, opinions, lifestyles, hobbies, modes of behavior, consumption habits) with keywords or in short sentences. Clarifying where and when the problem or wish occurs You shouldn’t neglect the where-and-when aspects of your task. The situation can be an everyday event (for example, a shopping spree, household activities, surfing online, travel, leisure, or cultural activities), personal circumstances (the person is pregnant, in a financial predicament, or under time pressure or stress), or a special place where your target users’ problem or wish occurs. The requirements for a meal can differ on the road, at home, at work, or during recreational activities (hiking, sailing, bowling, at the movies). The task may also depend on the time, duration, and frequency of occurrence. The need for information about snow skiing opportunities is much higher in the winter than in the summer. You always have to consider your task in connection with the specific situation and the special aspects of the location or time. You can discover the significance of certain situations and times when you compare various situations and times. Clarify when and where the problem or wish of your target users doesn’t occur. On this basis, contrast differences and commonalities in terms of the situation and time. When buying flowers, for example, you can see differences depending on when the purchase occurs. Study when and where your target users buy flowers, by observing people at garden centers and flower shops at various times. You'll certainly find differences among the customers in terms of the length of the shop visit, the type and number of purchased flowers, and the use of customer service in the morning as opposed to the late afternoon. Clarifying why the problem or wish occurs Only if you know and understand what caused of the problem or what drove the wish can you find a satisfactory and permanent solution. You can use the fishbone diagram by the Japanese chemist Kaoru Ishikawa (also called the Ishikawa diagram) to systematically structure the causes of the problem. The fishbone diagram is a simple diagram that lets you provide an illustrative identification of causal relationships. For a better overview of the relationships between cause and effect, the various causes are written along the individual lines (bones) — as either the main cause or a secondary cause, depicted in the form of a branch. As a system, the main causes are divided into the areas of man, machine, material, method, management, and Mother Nature, where the latter stands for the environment of the problem. Because these areas share the initial letter, this is also referred to as the 4M (man, material, machine, method), 7M (with the addition of management, Mother Nature, and measurement), or even 8M (expanded to include money). Individually, the following causes of the problem or wishes are considered in these categories: Man: Special weaknesses (or strengths) of humans. These can be in the areas of skills (technical, methodological, and social), performed activities, or modes of behavior. A lack of customer orientation and employee motivation in customer service can result in low customer satisfaction. Machine: Special weaknesses (or strengths) of the machine or tools used for the task. Using an outdated machine in production can be a cause of the low productivity. Material: Special weaknesses (or strengths) in the material used or information required for the task. Increases in the prices of raw materials result in higher costs in the manufacturing of a product. Method: Special weaknesses (or strengths) in the technical or organizational approach. The delivery times for customer orders take too long because the merchandise is unnecessarily checked for completeness by two departments at a time. Management: Special weaknesses (or strengths) in the organization, planning, management, and control of a task. A scheduling error can be the cause of delays in business processes. The communication deficits between two departments can explain the slow processing of customer inquiries. Mother Nature: Special weaknesses (or strengths) in the external environment of the task. “The environment” can refer to environmental influences as well as the activities of external business partners and competitors. High temperature fluctuations in the supply chain cause a high amount of rejects in food transports. The declining market shares of a product can be explained with the successful market launch of a better product by the competition. Measurement: Special weaknesses (or strengths) in the measurement of technical or economic processes. A defective measuring system intended to recognize deviations in the paint can be a cause for subsequent paint damages in a new product. Exclusively using the number of processed customer inquiries as the key indicator in an employee evaluation can be the cause of low-quality consultations during customer inquiries. Money: Special weaknesses (or strengths) in the available financial resources (money) for the task. Insufficient financial means can cause a lag in the development of a sales team in Asia. In this early phase of the design thinking process, the fishbone diagram gives you an initial overview of the cause-and-effect relationships. In the following phases, you'll use surveys, observations, and experiments to collect additional information that you can adopt into your fishbone diagram. After compiling the causes, you need to evaluate them. One simple approach is to perform the evaluation with your team by applying red adhesive dots on the causes in the fishbone diagram. Each evaluator gets five adhesive dots that can be applied freely. If a cause is especially significant, a participant can give it multiple dots. The sum of the adhesive dots provides the order of the causes, from least to most significant. You should discuss the most important causes in more detail among the team. Lastly, make sure that you've listed every possible cause. Ask yourself whether the causes you came up with are sufficient for explaining the problem or wish of your target users. When doing this check for completeness, you might come up with additional causes. As a supplement to the fishbone diagram, I recommend that you use the 5 Whys technique for each identified main cause. Behind every problem or wish is a chain of causes that you must identify. Like a small child, ask at least five times in a row why something is the way it is. In cases where the cause of failure is initially felt to be technical in nature, the 5 Whys technique often reveals that human error or mismanagement is often the root cause. Let's say you have a quality problem with a new product, where a plastic part keeps breaking after constant use and customers are complaining about it. You ask: “Why is that?” Answer: “The manufacturing process is defective.” You ask a second time: “Why is that?” Answer: “The process couldn’t be tested adequately.” You ask a third time: “Why is that?” Answer: “There wasn’t enough time to develop the process before the market launch.” You ask a fourth time: “Why is that?” Answer: “The research unit told the production department about the technical specifications for the new product too late before the market launch”. You ask a fifth time: “Why is that?” Answer: “There’s no organized coordination process between the research and production units at the company.” Ultimately, the cause of a technical problem lies in a communication deficit between two departments.

Article / Updated 05-31-2020

In design thinking projects, a team has between five and nine members, gathered together in one place. A smaller group will lack the required amount of experience and the work capacity to master the tasks in a design thinking project. A team that has more than nine team members results in coordination problems that prevent fast and efficient action. For the number of team members, note the “two-pizza rule:” Never have more team members than you can feed with two large pizzas. Keep in mind, though, that the number of people isn’t truly decisive. Pay more attention to the composition of (and the distribution of responsibilities within) the team. Relying on variety in team makeup The variety in the team composition — the team's diversity, in other words —is an essential principle in design thinking. Thanks to the various perspectives, levels of knowledge, skills, experiences, attitudes and values a truly diverse team provides, you’ll be in a positon to solve the tasks you’re facing. My advice to you: Ensure diversity in the team as you assemble it. Don’t just consider characteristics such as age, gender, or ethnic affiliation in your efforts to make your team more diverse. Also look at the professional and personal experiences and values. These characteristics may not be so obvious, but they are central to effective teamwork. A requirement profile that can help you select the proper team members involves the search for T-shaped individuals, where the T stands for the combination of a generalist (the horizontal bar of the T) and a specialist (the vertical bar of the T). The figure shows the skill components and necessary areas of overlap for collaboration in the team. In T-shaped individuals, the breadth of the competence overlaps to make a successful collaboration possible. At the same time, they have a depth of competence that design thinking requires in order to complete a task. Always look for T-shaped persons to handle your design thinking tasks. In the letter T, the horizontal bar stands for the breadth of competence, which can be divided into general professional competencies or mindsets and interdisciplinary competencies or mindsets. The horizontal bar represents the generalist, who can collaborate beyond the boundaries of the discipline and function. When it comes to collaborative work, that person must have the general professional competencies necessary in order to understand the technical language, methods, and approaches of other disciplines. That person also needs to exhibit capacities such as leadership, communication, and cooperation skills, along with a mindset that promotes cooperation. Such a cooperation-friendly mindset reveals itself through curiosity, openness, and empathy toward other areas. Empathy — the ability to relate to another person — is a foundational principle for success in design thinking. The vertical bar in the T describes the special knowledge and skills in a functional area that can be divided into theoretical and application competencies. Individuals who have only a specialized technical competence are described as I-shaped persons. In online marketing, this person might be the data analyst who has no other specific skills or experiences in the marketing area. Defining roles on the team The responsibilities for the individual work packages can be distributed according to the technical skills of team members. Each work package includes the work processes that relate to each other, and each has a person in charge. Divide the work packages if they become too complex. One person can work on a maximum of four work packages at a time; otherwise, the scope of the work is too large. Determine the roles for the following management tasks: A decision-maker for the distribution of resources within the project A person in charge of the overall success of the project A contact person for the steering committee, client, customers, and other external business partners (consultants, authorities, colleges, research institutes, or suppliers) A contact person for reporting conflicts and problems confronting the team An organizer and a moderator of team meetings The individuals handling these various management tasks should have a good grasp of the company, motivate the team, be empowered to make decisions, and be capable of making said decisions. The individuals taking on these roles are representatives from a customer- or market-oriented area who have basic technical knowledge. Since these individuals work with the project team, steering committee, client, customer, and other business partners, they have to strike a balance between what is economically reasonable and technically feasible. They’re responsible for the efficient use of resources. Creating a matrix of responsibility The best way to settle responsibilities within the project team as well as with internal organizational units and external partners is with the aid of a matrix of responsibility, the RACI matrix. The word RACI is an acronym: R: Responsible A: Active (performs the activity) C: Consulted (has to be coordinated with) I: Informed (must be informed about whatever task is being worked on) The table shows the RACI matrix and offers an overview of the responsibilities associated with the design thinking project: The RACI Matrix Responsible Steering Committee Research Marketing Sales Production Define design challenge. C A R I I Determine target users. R C A C I Find ideas. C A R I C Create prototype. C R I I A Ask customers. C I A R I It wouldn't hurt to create a team directory with contact details, such as first and last name, email address, phone number, and information about availability and responsibilities in the team. Make the team directory available to everyone involved in the project. Applying the principle of self-organization You want to distribute the individual work packages for fulfilling the design thinking task in the team according to the members’ skills and competencies. Rather than have a project manager assign the work packages to the individual team members, they are discussed and distributed independently within the team. The team members themselves select their tasks — as many as they can work on. If any work packages remain open after the distribution, you and the team have to discuss who can handle the work package and whether you need additional team members or external cooperative partners, such as consultants, colleges, or research institutes. Make sure that individual team members don’t take on too much. The principle of self-organization motivates the team. That is how the team members can successfully achieve their results.

Article / Updated 05-31-2020

Sequence planning involves the scheduling of the work packages during design thinking. With sequence planning, you determine the logical succession of the work packages. A rough framework to follow here would mirror the phases of the design thinking process — such as understanding the task, searching for solutions, creating a prototype, and testing the proposed solution with the customer. You assign the work packages to the individual phases in the form of a process list, where you determine a rough timeline and logical sequence for the work packages in the course of the project. For the detailed planning, you identify the logical and functional dependencies of each task by evaluating their relationships to preceding tasks. You ask which work packages must be finished, or at least started, with an interim result before you can initiate the work package in question. You start finding ideas only when you have determined the correct target users and have defined the concrete task. You start manufacturing the product when you have successfully tested the prototype with the customer. In addition to planning the sequence, you should define milestones. A milestone represents a certain moment in time but has no intrinsic set duration. It serves as an interim goal, where the progress of the project can be reviewed and a decision can be made about how to proceed (using Go to continue or Kill to terminate the project). Milestones should be set at the end of each project phase. In design thinking, you can describe the results of each phase by using Task Defined, Target Users Identified, Idea for Solution Developed, Prototype Created, and Test Successfully Completed with the Customer. Limit the number of milestones in a project and consider these guidelines: One milestone for every two to three months At least four milestones per project At least one milestone at the 3-month interval Laying down milestones has a motivating effect on the employees. When the team reaches an important milestone, be sure to celebrate it with them. Estimating the required time After specifying the sequence of the individual work packages, you have to estimate their duration. You can use the following resources when coming up with an estimate: Values based on experiences from completed projects Time estimates based on expert opinions Analogies (by searching for comparable projects and estimating the duration of the individual work packages) The degree of difficulty and novelty of the task (the more difficult and unique the task, the more time that should be planned for it) If only specific time slots are available for bottleneck resources or tasks, be sure to incorporate buffer times as a way to smooth out the process. Durations should always be estimated independently of any concrete ideas regarding the deadline, because such ideas would strongly influence the time estimate itself. Set aside a particular time requirement (5 to 15 percent of the total time needed) for the coordination of your design thinking project. For design thinking projects, you should plan in some detail how long the initial work packages will take and then plan the later phases more roughly. Creating a bar graph for a better overview The best way to illustrate the timeline is a bar graph, which is also referred to as a Gantt chart (after its inventor, Henry Laurence Gantt). Bar graphs are used to create the sequence planning as a basis for status reports and to present the time-related aspects of the project, as shown. The Y axis shows the representation of the project course in the form of the work packages, and the X axis refers to the time units in bar form. The length of the bar is used as a yardstick for the time needed for the work packages. If multiple work packages are occurring simultaneously, the bars are shown on top of each other. Bar graphs can be created and read easily and quickly. In a bar graph, you can record special activities, such as milestones (usually in the form of a rhombus).

Article / Updated 05-31-2020

Before you try some of the methods of design thinking in a workshop, you should become familiar with the basics. The principles and methods of this approach to innovation are probably unfamiliar to many in your organization. New ideas are always met with skepticism, reservations, or resistance. Overcome your reservations and foster your curiosity. Following and communicating the principles In design thinking, you should observe a few principles that will guide you toward success: Align yourself with people and their needs at an early stage: You start with people by either taking up a problem your target users have pointed out or a wish they may have expressed. Look for lead users — the ones who are ahead of their time and anticipate future needs of the target market. They are especially useful because their needs precede those of all other customers in the market and they have a strong incentive to resolve the need. Actively involve these customers in the development of your idea. Develop empathy: Put yourself in the position of your target users and explore these users’ emotions, thoughts, intentions, and actions. Illustrate ideas: Visualize your idea and demonstrate it with a prototype for potential users to experiment with. Prototypes can be hardware of various kinds, drawings, stories, role-playing games, model designs, or online applications in the form of Internet pages or apps. Learning from failure: Establish a culture that welcomes the value of mistakes at your company so that errors are tolerated as well as learned from. Make sure that mistakes are understood as a fixed component in the design thinking process and perceived as opportunities to learn. Ensure diversity in the team: Rely on diversity in the team so that you offer different perspectives. Diversity is shown in age, gender, education, cultural background, and personality type. Offer team-oriented and creative workspaces: The workspaces for individual and group work as well as spaces for the group as a whole must have a flexible and inspiring design. You should choose different locations, rooms, or furniture arrangements for the different design thinking phases. Make the process flexible: The design thinking process promotes a gradual approach. Analyze the problem, use it to formulate a task, develop initial possible solutions, test them, and learn from the feedback. You don’t strictly go through these phases in sequence. Whenever you get information that you have to analyze in detail, jump back to a previous step. Consider and observe these principles during the entire innovation process. Discuss the principles in each workshop, write them down, and display them in communal spaces so that they’re easily visible. As a team, check whether you’ve consistently adhered to the principles after each phase. Overview of the design thinking process In the first part of the design thinking process, you analyze the problem. This is the problem space, where you address the What and Why. (What is the problem? Why is it a problem?) Only in the second part, the solution space, are specific solutions developed and tested: Here you ask about the How. (How can something be solved?) In this process, you combine two phases. In the divergent (dispersing) phase, you collect information or develop numerous ideas that result in expanding your perspectives. In the convergent (combining) phase, you sharpen the field-of-view and compile the results or decide on choices. These divergent and convergent phases alternate. According to the British Design Council, the change between expanding and focusing resembles the image of a double diamond (Double Diamond Process Model), as shown. The design thinking process is similar to the approach of members of the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford University (commonly known as the “d.school”). They spell out these six distinct phases: Understanding the problem: In the first phase, you create an in-depth understanding of your target users’ problem or need. You have to clarify which information you’re still lacking about the target users, their needs, and their problems. Observing customers: This phase consists of detailed research and on-site observations about the customer’s need or problem. It utilizes observations and surveys so that you can put yourself in the customer’s shoes. Defining the question: After the observations and surveys, you should focus the insights on a selected group of customers or users and summarize their problems and needs in a defined question. Finding and selecting ideas: Only in this phase do you actually find ideas. You need to employ creative principles and techniques so that you prepare multiple possible solutions. Evaluate the usefulness, economic viability and feasibility of your ideas and make a selection. Developing prototypes: In this phase, you should visualize the ideas, make them tangible, and then outline, design, model, or simulate them so that the potential customer understands your idea and can test it. Testing assumptions: In this concluding phase, you test your assumptions or ideas with systematic customer feedback. You receive responses, learn from them, and continue developing your idea. Even if the phases are shown in sequence, as shown, there are numerous feedback locations between the phases. You can skip phases (at first). If you already find interesting solutions while researching the problem, you can design initial prototypes and test them with the help of customer surveys. If you see that the customer doesn’t care for the idea, take a few steps back and analyze the needs of your target users again. Critically ask yourself whether you chose the right target users. Run through the individual phases quickly. The principle is to fail early and often so that you can learn from the failure. The feedback between the process phases helps you learn. If necessary, terminate the process if the customer doesn’t give you positive feedback. This saves you time and money that you would have spent on something that flops in the market. The design thinking process in detail The path toward creating an attractive solution for your target users’ needs can be complex and can carry great uncertainties regarding its success. In situations of uncertainty and complexity, there’s often little information available about the best solution. The best way to achieve your goal is to proceed gradually: Collect information about your task so that you can accumulate knowledge. Collecting and evaluating information about the task In the first phase, you have to understand the task you want to solve. Take enough time for the task analysis, which can be presented as a problem brought up by your target users or a wish expressed by them. When analyzing your task, it’s helpful to systematically answer the six "W" questions: What is the need of your target users? Who has this need? In what way is this need of your user group revealed? Where is this need evident? When does this need show? Why do your target users have this need? Compile all the information and describe what you know about your target users and the problem. A problem or wish can refer to a service, a design, user friendliness, usage period, price, or environmental or social compatibility. Focus on just a few significant characteristics of the need. You need convincing and up-to-date information to close the gaps in your knowledge. You can use the following sources: Publications and patent databases Customers surveys or direct customer observations Supplier surveys Joint workshops with customers or suppliers Search online and offline for studies, articles, and newspaper reports about your target users, and be sure to collect statements, contact details, or other relevant information in social networks. Finally, don't forget to search for blogs by or about your target users. Observing the target users Collect important impressions and information about the problems and needs of your target users through observations in real environments. Only through observations can you capture the authentic and spontaneous behavior of people in their natural environment. Don’t immediately evaluate the people and situations you encounter. Ask yourself what kinds of actions are underway and which situations are being created. Don’t immediately categorize it. The focus should be on the respondent’s actions instead of on their disposition, values, and norms. You can better get to the bottom of those aspects through interviews. Observations aren’t just about the specific superficial activities — the persons and situations must be considered as a whole. Capture the surroundings, including all relevant objects, the situation itself, and all actions and interactions of the people as well as their emotions. Link the observation with a survey, for example, by asking the target users about their motivations behind specific actions. You can perform a survey before, during, or after the observed situation. When you start recognizing patterns in the observations, you have invested enough time. Write down as much as necessary — but as little as possible. Defining the task The analytical phases are followed by the consolidation — the synthesis — of the gained information in a concise form. The question or problem is your task — the design challenge that you and your team want to master. The information must answer two basic questions that are important for solving the problem: Who are the target users that matter here? What is the specific need that you want to satisfy? In this phase, don’t offer any indication of what a possible solution might look like. Always separate the wording of the challenge from finding the solution. The Persona method is the best way to summarize the relevant information when it comes to describing the target users. A persona is a real or fictitious person with individual characteristics that represent the target users (or at least some of them). Describe the characteristics of this person (age, gender, education level, opinions, hobbies, and modes of behavior) with keywords or in short sentences. When you describe customer needs, ignore the fact that your target users want to get a certain product or specific service. Ask yourself what and why your target user wants to achieve something in a particular situation. The problems and frustrations of your target user when handling a task are often the starting points for the subsequent solution. In addition to the problems, consider the (unstated) wishes of the target user. These wishes enable you to find new offers for the target user. Ask your target user about the motivations behind the needs. Finding solutions Based on how you define your task, your goal must be to develop as many ideas as possible for potential solutions. For the initial search for ideas, you can use these sources: General Internet research in the area of your task Articles in trade magazines Descriptions of patents in databases Participation in specialized presentations or discussions at trade shows and conferences. Surveys and observations of lead users or suppliers who have already found initial possible solutions Be sure to integrate experts with a scientific background as well as those with practical experience into your design thinking process. Organize joint workshops, execute your projects together, or ask experts about your assumptions and ideas. Many years of experience with creative processes have yielded some general principles regarding the search for problem-solving ideas: The decomposition principle: The idea here is to disassemble the problem, task, process steps, or redesigned product into its various parts and then vary or combine these parts in a new way. The association principle: Here, you want to link together ideas, information, perceptions, and emotions. One example is brainstorming and its variants Brainstorming is common enough, and probably doesn’t need defining here. The idea is for participants to spontaneously express ideas, leading to many ideas being produced in a short amount of time. The participants give their imagination free reign to find new and original ideas — even the craziest ideas are welcome. The free expression of ideas also stipulates that only one person speaks at a time. Ideas by others can and should be picked up, modified, or refined. The most important rule to follow is to focus just on finding ideas —actually evaluating the ideas you find should wait until later. Analogy and confrontation: These involve specific methods for adopting a new perspective on a problem. With analogies, you compare your task with a task from a completely different area and then use the commonalities and differences you discover as a stimulus for new ideas. Use the principle of analogy to put yourself in the situation of another person or another company. Ask yourself what would happen if you were another person or a company. One example is, “What if I were a billionaire?” A billionaire symbolizes infinite riches that would be available for the solution to the problem. This analogy method, known as the what-if technique, allows you to overcome your own mental barriers. As for confrontations, the selected area you choose is intentionally posed as a counterpart to your task. Setting the two areas side-by-side forces you to change perspective and thus get new ideas. Provocation: With the Provocation technique, you formulate the solution as provocative statements in order to get new stimuli from exaggerations, contradictions, or wishful thinking. Consider how you might make the customer’s problem more extreme. Abstraction and imagination: The idea here is to move out from your problem so that you can view it from a higher, more abstract, or pictorial level. Get as much distance from the problem as possible so that you can understand the problem from a “helicopter perspective” and get ideas for solutions. Use your imagination to create a more image-based view of the problem, abstracting out even further. Simplification: As with abstraction, the simplification of products and processes is a successful formula for innovative solutions. The idea here is to remove or decrease process steps, characteristics, or functions that aren’t relevant for the customer or aren’t perceived and acknowledged as relevant. Instead, you should focus on the necessary functions, streamline your products, and standardize and automate your processes. The greatest potential of creative principles and techniques lies in their combination. Test the various principles and techniques in a team, and then go with what works best. Remove all obstacles to your creativity. Avoid stress and unhealthy behavior — it can influence your creativity. Renovate non-ergonomic workplaces, replace inadequate work equipment, reduce noise levels, and fix rooms that are too cold or hot. On an organizational level, rigid and strict controls, numerous regulations, and a dry formalism result in a bureaucracy that limits the flourishing of creativity. Scrutinize the regulations and formalities. Create breathing spaces where no regulations apply. Selecting solutions that work If you pursue every possible solution, you'll soon reach your limits because you probably aren't working with an unlimited budget. Admittedly, people want to see quick results — usually, a newly developed product poised for great success — but despite such pressures, you should avoid initiating multiple developments simultaneously. Have the team make a selection at an early stage. There is no single correct evaluation method. If you employ several kinds of evaluations, you will develop a comprehensive picture of your idea. Dot-voting — where you have every participant distribute five adhesive dots to the various individual ideas, including giving multiple dots to one idea — is a great way to make a rough selection. Just sort the ideas according to the number of dots received. Employees from different departments often assess the opportunities and risks of the same potential solutions in different ways. Utilize the range of perspectives and rely on variety in the evaluation. This makes the idea easier to implement later, when you integrate persons from different departments during the decision. When the rough selection is completed, look at the advantages, opportunities, and implementation barriers of your proposed solutions. Use checklists like the following to review whether the ideas can meet the stipulated criteria: Feasibility: You must check whether the idea is feasible. Fit (strategic and cultural fit): The idea must fit the vision, strategy, and culture of the company. Desirability: Your idea must have a customer benefit. Business viability: An idea with business viability is one where the income is higher than the expenses. Scalability: This refers to the idea’s ability to accomplish high growth with relatively little effort. Sustainability: Your idea must be successful in the long run; it must have a long-lasting economic, social, and ecological benefit. Adaptability: In a dynamically changing environment, your idea must be adaptable. Developing prototypes With a prototype, you can vividly present and test the essential functions and characteristics of your idea. Create a prototype early on, without elaborate planning and with little effort. You can choose from different types, and the selection depends on the maturity of your idea and whether you want to develop an innovative product, a service, or a business model. Drawings and photo collages: You can easily and quickly create a prototype of your idea on paper, a whiteboard, or an electronic device with a drawing or an image made of collaged photos. Outline the product design or create drawings from the individual functions and characteristics of your idea. Model constructions: Use paper, cardboard, modeling clay, or Styrofoam to illustrate certain functions or characteristics of your idea. A 3D printer makes it possible to create realistic models. Stories and role-playing games: Tell a story about the use of a product so that you get feedback about its usefulness and ease of use. With storytelling, describe the advantages or the use of your idea as a real or fictitious story. You can also act out the story in the form of a video or role-playing game or with toy building blocks. Digital prototypes: You can prepare initial visual representations of control elements and buttons with wireframes. Create a web page on which you present your ideas and evaluate the user behavior on this web page. If the creation of a prototype involves a significant amount of effort, you can also simulate how a prototype functions in an experiment for test subjects. For example, if you want to test whether customers accept the use of artificial intelligence by a consulting service, you can offer an entry screen on a computer and explain that the answers to the test subject’s questions are provided by a computer. Simulate this for the test subjects, and have an employee answer the questions. Check whether customers generally accept such a consulting service. You will also find out how to design artificial intelligence for the consultation. This is a Wizard of Oz prototype. Just as in the classic movie The Wizard of Oz, something happens behind a screen, and it's not necessarily what the customers expect. Tell the test subjects that this is an experiment. Testing solutions Design thinking lives off early feedback from potential customers about ideas and assumptions. You can learn from this and adapt your assumptions and solutions. The idea here is to formulate and check various assumptions about the behavior and needs of your target users as well as your ideas for a solution. Ask the customers for an evaluation based on a single characteristic that the customers can most easily test on a prototype. If you get negative feedback from a customer, you have to respond quickly and flexibly. Use what you learn to design a new prototype and test it again. You can gain respondents in various ways. Use your friends and your contacts in the social networks, ask friends of friends for recommendations, or create emails describing your project for others to forward, along with a note that you’re looking for contacts to test your assumptions or ideas. You can approach your employees or colleagues at your own company and survey them in the role of the customer. Always be thinking about where you might find potential customers. The place might be understood as a real location (cafés, shops, trade shows) or a virtual place (social networks, trade forums). Research where your customers shop, work, or spend their time off. During the first contact with anybody from a new pool of potential customers, emphasize that this is not a sales pitch but that you’re looking for advice and need that person’s evaluation. Conduct personal interviews, if at all possible. During each interview, don’t just consider content-specific claims — pay particular attention to statements that have some emotion behind them or that come as a surprise. You know that you have conducted enough interviews when you recognize a clear response pattern. When you create an online prototype in the form of a web page or an app, you examine the visitor behavior on this page. With this online prototype, you can test individual functions or the user friendliness of these online offers. If your assumptions aren’t confirmed or if your observations and surveys show ambiguous results, you might need to return to an earlier stage in the design thinking process. You learn from the failure, change the idea according to the feedback from your target users, create an improved prototype, and perform new tests. With this approach, you'll gradually reach a promising product, service. or business model innovation.