Design Thinking Method Cards

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The customer situation:

“How do I make my company innovative and change the way we solve our business problems?“

Why?

Because innovation is key for continued success.

There are tons of challenges and problems to solve.

To harness people’s creativity.

What is stopping you?

Nothing! Design Thinking with SAP Services is a great approach for your business challenge. It is proven and already available.

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What is it?

Design Thinking is a human centric approach for solving problems and creating new ideas.

SAP Services applies this approach to customer challenges like defining new strategies, designing new products, solutions, processes, organizational cultures or policies.

How does it work?

Design Thinking starts with creating deep empathy for the situation of persons concerned.

Then, Design Thinking identifies the optimal solution that finds the right balance between people’s desires, technological feasibility and business viability.

The Design Thinking methodology is executed by a multi disciplinary team (iteratively) running through various phases supported by respective tools and techniques.

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Phase: Scoping

Definition:

Scoping is about defining the right challenge.

The goal is to get a common understanding of the challenge/problem space together with the customer. At the end of a project the ideas and concepts developed will be measured against the previously defined challenge. Make sure you understand the challenge right and rephrase if necessary.

Activities:


Method: Brain Dump

Use when:

At the beginning of a project (e.g. during scoping) to ensure common understanding of the challenge within the team.

Concept:

Explores different perspectives of the Design Thinking challenge. Ensures airtime for everybody and allows everybody to contribute and get on-board. Sticky notes on the wall will show the complexity of the topic. Focus is on sharing thoughts and not on detailed discussion (time boxing is key!).

Duration: 30 min

• Silent brainstorm – 5 min • Share, cluster and headline within each team – 25 min

How to:

Facilitation needed if:

• Participants get stuck in a detailed discussion. • One participant takes too much time to share her/his thoughts. • Participants have difficulty in clustering the data.

Silent Brain Dump

• Show slide with key questions (“What comes into your mind…).

• Set and start timer for 5 min for silent brain dump (anything that comes to mind, e.g. thoughts, pain points, questions, concerns, etc.). Instruct participants to include only one data point per sticky note.

Sharing

• Set and start timer for 25 min for round the table sharing, clustering and headlining. Each participant to share their sticky notes one note at a time and put it on a wall.

Clustering

• After all team members have shared their sticky notes, start to cluster the data. Common topics or patterns will arise, so make sure that these sticky notes are placed next to each other.

• Define headlines for the different clusters.

Reflect

• Ask participants about the number of duplicate sticky notes. (probably not a lot, which shows complexity of the topic).


Method: Brain Dump .


Method: CATWOE (by Peter Checkland)

Use when: Your challenge is “solution” oriented and you want to set the scoping into a bigger context.

Concept: CATWOE was defined by Peter Checkland as a part of his Soft Systems Methodology (SSM). It is a simple checklist for thinking. Like many checklists, it can be surprisingly useful when used appropriately to stimulate open thoughts.

Use the areas below to stimulate thinking about the problem and/or implementing the solution. C = Customers, A = Actors, T = Transformation process, W = World View, O = Owner, E = Environmental constraints.

Duration: 60 min

How to: Ask the participants to each area answer the following questions:

Customer

Who is on the receiving end? What problem do they have now?

Actors

Who are the actors who will 'do the doing', carry out your solution?

What is the impact on them? How might they react?

Transformation process

What is the process for transforming inputs into outputs?

What are the inputs? Where do they come from?

World View

What is the bigger picture into which the situation fits?

What is the real problem you are working on?

Owner

Who is the real owner or owners of the process or situation you are changing?

Can they help you or stop you? What would lead them to help you?

Environmental constraints

What are the broader constraints that act on the situation and your ideas

Facilitation needed if: • Participants get stuck in a detailed discussion. • One participant takes too much time to share her/his thoughts.


Method: CATWOE (by Peter Checkland)


Method: Charetting

Use when:

Especially at the very beginning of a project to find the „right“ challenge and „How Might We“ questions. Helps project teams to gain clarity about the challenge and find out how much the team knows about the topic. Can also be used to discuss scope with project sponsor, if scope is fuzzy.

Concept:

Charretting allows the team to collaboratively evaluate potential areas of interest for a given (often unclear) challenge and project scope.

Duration:

30 min per iteration.

How to:

1. Write the design challenge on a whiteboard and draw a table with three columns.

2.Brainstorm relevant user/context and pick the most important user (column one).

3. Brainstorm about potential issues/insights you can learn from the user. Pick one issue/insight (column two).

4.Brainstorm potential solutions based on the insights to solve the issue (column three).

5.Ask yourself: What did we discover? What are the most important insights? Potentially rephrase the challenge.

6.Potentially iterate on other user/context.


The team has difficulties in rephrasing a challenge.


Method: Charetting

Write the design challenge on a whiteboard.

Ask yourself: What did we discover? What are the most important insights?

Rephrase your design thinking challenge.


Phase: 360° Research

Definition:

360° Research is about the Researching, Discovering, Exploring and Capturing of information. The goal is to find data that serves to inspire the team and gain empathy for the users and stakeholders, so that their voices can be represented when design decisions are made. Keep in mind this phase consists of diverging activities, - no conclusions yet.

Activities:

• Prepare and plan the research

• Conduct field research (people)

• Conduct competitive and industry research

• Look at thought leaders/ analysts

• Consider adjacent, analogous and other research

Creating Choices


Method: Interview Planning

Use when:

To prepare data collection during research. It also helps to create context and empathy for the design challenge and people concerned.

Concept:

Time with users is precious. Therefore it is imperative to plan and prepare for interviews. This also makes team members feeling more safe when approaching people.

Duration: 30 min

The duration can be much longer depending on the complexity of the interview.

How to:


• Team members define questions, which are not open or not empathic enough.

• Team members are not familiar with the environment and accessibility to interviewees.

Intro

• Prepare introduction of yourself and your project.

• Create a header section for name, role, org. unit, company, and key tasks of your interview partner interviewee

User Types

• Identify user types that might cross your way (you may encounter even more while doing the research).

Guiding Question

• Define key guiding questions per user type and sort them in a meaningful manner (-> method “Interview for Empathy”).

• Don’t forget to capture the environment (tools, things, light, sound etc.).

Team Setup

• Define roles—who asks the questions and who takes notes.

• Consider splitting your team into groups of 2-3 per group.


Method: Interview Planning


Method: Interview for Empathy

Use when:

For data collection during research and if users are available and directly accessible.

Concept:

Talking with users about their needs and observing them in their work context helps to envision solutions that are desirable for them. Before an interview is conducted it should be carefully prepared. Using the right questions and interview approach determines if people will be open and share their experience. Ideally, the interviews are conducted at the user’s work place and without the user’s managers!

Duration: min. 20 min

Depending on the complexity of the interview and length of the project, the duration can be much longer.

How to:

Running interviews, will be a key part of research and a typical and good interview runs through various phases:

1. It starts with a intro, then some questions to create rapport between interviewer and interviewee.

2.Then the interviewer should try to evoke stories and not just brief answers.

3. Then the interviewer should try to explore emotions of the interviewee.

4.Finally the interviewer should question statements of the interviewee if stories and emotions do not really fit to the statements.

In general: Ask neutral, don’t suggest answers, don’t be afraid of silence, don’t ask binary questions, don’t ask long questions, be aware of body language.


If team members instantly ask questions that imply a high degree of creativity or just forward the Design Challenge to the interviewee.


Method: Interview for Empathy

Do Don’t

Ask why and encourage stories

Look for inconsistencies

Be aware of body language

Ask neutral questions

Capture quotes

Don’t suggest answers

Don’t be afraid of silence

Don’t ask binary questions

Don’t ask long questions


Phase: Synthesis

Definition:

Synthesis is about structuring the unstructured Data.

The goal is to share and structure the information collected during the 360° Research phase. Additionally it is about setting the information in relation to different stakeholder types, those might be personas. Different techniques help to come to a convergent state of mind without jumping to the solution just yet.

Activities:

• Prepare space

• Share raw data

• Look for patterns and themes

• Derive insights

• Create Personas and Scenarios

• Create Point of View

Making Choices

. . .


Method: Storytelling

Use when:

Supports sythesis of research results. Can be used as preparation for phrasing of user point of view, user story mapping, customer journey maps or other synthesis methods.

Concept:

The goal of story sharing is to get the team on the same level of knowledge about the research findings. The stories should include research findings, rich background information, and the research approach. During the session, team members take turns in sharing their stories of the research. A great exercise to develop empathy!

Duration:

Depends on the number/size of interviews (~5 min per interview).

How to:


• Team members start to judge the stories.

• Team members start discussions and do not listen to the stories.

• Nobody captures data points.

Outline

• Outline the research approach (e.g. interviews), methods, and circumstances at the beginning of the session to summarize the effort.

Sharing

• Round the table: Share the stories and characteristics of users with your team mates (share in first person).

• Images, movies, anecdotes, and quotes are useful to support your story and engage the audience. Encourage the audience to ask questions.

Wall of Data

• Each team mate capture data points of each story and stick them to a wall. It helps if the wall is structured according to certain categories (e.g. user characteristics, goals, painpoints, activities, environment).

• Finally a wall fo data with evolve. Cluster the data and define headlines for the different topics


Method: Storytelling


Method: Saturate and Group

Use when:

When you have to synthesize research findings. Can be combined with story sharing.

Concept:

First saturate the space around you with all the findings. This will help to unpack thoughts and experiences into tangible and visual pieces of information. The surrounding information will inform and inspire the team. Afterwards group these findings to explore, what themes and patterns emerge. This will inspire the team to move toward identifying meaningful needs of people and insights.

Duration: 30 min+

Depends on the mass of data.

How to:

1. Saturate your wall space (or work boards) with post-its headlining interesting findings plus pictures from the field of users you met and relevant products , artifacts and situations.

2. In order to begin to synthesize the information, organize the post-its and pictures into groups of related parts.

3. You likely have some ideas of the patterns within the data from the unpacking you did when producing the notes.

4.The end goal is to synthesize data into interesting findings and create insights which will be useful for creating respective solutions.

5. It is common to do the grouping with post-its headlining interesting stories from field work. But grouping is also useful in terms of thinking about similarities among a group of products, objects, or users.


• The team does not start grouping the data.


Method: Saturate and Group

Headline

Headline

Headline


Method: Persona Definition

Use when:

Creates empathy and supports sythesis of research results. Can be used as preparation for phrasing of user point of view, user story mapping, customer journey maps or other synthesis methods.

Concept:

A persona is an aggregated profile of a specific user type. Personas enable creative teams to develop a shared understanding of their user (respectively people concerned by the challenge). Personas have name, age, and personality traits so that the team develops empathy with the user and stops arguing about individual opinions.

Duration:

Depends on persona details. 20 min per persona minimum.

How to:


• Team members do not agree on a few personas.

• Team members argue about individual opinions and imagine what the persona wants.

• Team members have problems in phrasing an elevator pitch.

User Profile

• Based on research data summarize users with similar goals and characteristics to get an aggregated user profile – a persona.

Visual

• Give the persona a name and create a visual representation. Add a photo or sketch that illustrates that person’s characteristics .

• Keep this in a visible area during the course of the project.

Attribute

• Add attributes to the persona like demographics (age, education…), needs and tasks, goals and aspirations, feelings to name just a few.

• Define headlines for the different categories.

Discuss

• Use the persona to discuss your ideas. Ask: Would <insert Persona Name> use this? Would this design solve <insert Persona Name>‘s problem? Would she/he pay for that?


Method: Persona Definition


Method: Persona Context Grid

Use when:

Especially useful for predicting changes and future developments for the context of a persona. This, again, can be used as a foundation for ideation of future solutions.

Concept:

The exercise puts a persona in her/his actual context and describes the key context elements according to certain categories. Based on the actual context, the team has to brainstorm, how the identified context elements will change in the future. This will allow to derive key future trends for the given context categories.

Duration:

40 min per persona minimum.

How to:


• Team members do not agree on a persona.

• Team members have problems in phrasing of future thesis.

Time Horizon

• Define the future time horizon, you would like to set (e.g. 10 years from now) and the context elements (e.g. environment, tools, interactions…).

Persona • Define a persona with name and attributes and put her/him on a wall.

Current Context

• Brainstorm current context elements for the persona and given categories.

• Cluster and structure the results.

Future Context

• Brainstorm how each of the context elements will change in the future.

• Cluster and structure the results.

Future Trend

• Derive key trends, that will impact the context of the persona.


Method: Persona Context Grid


Method: Point of View Madlib

Use when:

Final synthesis of research results to prepare ideation with “how might we” questions.

Concept:

Depending on the design challenge it is helpful to finally synthesize research data into a “Point of View” Madlib. This is just a table consisting of three columns:

• The personas you have identified.

• The needs you have identified for them.

• The insights, you have for them (why do they have the needs?)

This is a good starting point for ideating solutions, as the PoV Madlib can be used to derive “How might we” questions, which are more detailed and specific than the original design challenge.

Duration:

Depends on persona details. 20 min per persona minimum.

How to:

1. Write the respective persona in the first column.

2. Phrase the need of this persona in a very crisp sentence (second column).

3. List the key insights you have for this persona in the third column.

4. Iterate with further personas.


• Team members do not agree on a key need and insights.

• Team members argue about individual opinions and imagine what the persona wants.


Method: Point of View Madlib

Derive questions for ideation: „How might we…“


Phase: Ideation

Definition:

Ideation is about brainstorming ideas.

The goal is to generate as many ideas as possible. At this point the team starts to imagine possibilities. Do not check for feasibility and viability at the beginning of ideation, this is done later during prioritization.

Activities:

• Prepare space

• Apply ideation tools & generate ideas

• Move from problem to solution space

• Prioritize and filter ideas

• Develop first design concepts

Creating Choices


Method: Brainstorming

Use when:

“Classic” method for ideation. Often used in conjunction with other methods. Can also be used in other phases, whenever idea generation is required.

Concept:

The intention of brainstorming is to leverage the collective thinking of the group, by engaging with each other, listening and building on each other’s ideas. Conducting a brainstorm also creates a distinct segment of time when you intentionally turn up the generative part of your brain and turn down the evaluative part.

Duration: 15-30 min

Depends on team size.

How to:

1. Set a fixed time frame and bring the team in front of a white board.

2. Write down clearly, what you are brainstorming. Using a “How Might We” question is a great way to frame a brainstorm.

3. There are at least two ways to capture the ideas of a brainstorming:

Scribe: the scribe legibly and visually captures the ideas on the board that team members call out.

All-in: Each person will write down each of his or her ideas as they come, and verbally share it with the group. It is great to do this with post-it notes, so you can write your idea and then stick it on the board.

There are also rules to respect: One conversation at a time, go for quantity, headline!, build on the ideas of others, encourage wild ideas, be visual, stay focused, defer judgment, everything goes on the wall!


• Brainstorming rules are broken. • Participants get stuck in a detailed discussion. • One participant takes too much time to share her/his thoughts.


Method: Brainstorming

.


Method: Remember the Future*

Use when:

For ideation in the context of challenges, which require the definition of a plan how to move forward (e.g. organizational changes). Helps to overcome political landscapes by creating an aligned vision of the future within the team.

Concept:

Anticipate a future scenario, where a challenge has been successfully solved by the team. Looking back from this point of success, the method drives ideation of needed steps and activities to get there. The definition of an elevator pitch sets a common vision and guiding star for the team.

Duration: 45 min

• Layout a future scenario and silent brainstorm – 10 min. • Share, cluster and define elevator pitch – 35 min.

How to:


• Participants get stuck in a detailed discussion. • One participant takes too much time to share her/his thoughts. • Participants have difficulties in clustering the data.

Future

• Layout a future scenario with the help of a madlib like “meet the CEO in the elevator and briefly explain how you achieved success”.

Brain dump

• 5 Minutes silent brain dump with focus on actions/decisions that were taken in the timeframe until the future scenario happens.

• Round the table sharing of brain dump results.

Group data

• Without interrupting start to cluster data. Common topics or patterns will arise.

• Define headlines for the different categories.

Elevator Pitch

• Phrase one or two crisp sentences that describe the solution and serve as an “Elevator Pitch”. This sentences needs to be captured on a flipchart/whiteboard.

* http://innovationgames.com/remember-the-future/


Method: Remember the Future


Method: Customer Journey Map

Use when:

After research for ideation of solutions and as input for prototyping.

Concept:

The goal of a Customer Journey Map (CJM) is to understand the experience of a customer going through the “journey” using the ‘as is’ situation. Ideally, the CJM is done together with users. If the journey map is based on assumptions, these assumptions should be validated and iterated with real users. The CJM includes a short customer profile and a persona on the left, the customer journey in the center and space for ideas on the right.

Duration: 45 min

Depends on the “duration” of the journey.

How to:


• Participants get stuck in a detailed discussion. • One participant takes too much time to share her/his thoughts.

Persona • Define the persona, who is going through the journey.

Journey

• Ask the participants to write the scenario or Journey of the persona on Post-It notes. Use three different colors and swim lanes for the “mindset” the “actions” and “touch points” of the persona.

Ideas

• Whenever ideas for the future solution appear, allow the participants to post them to the idea section, but focus on the experience of the persona. Walk in the shoes of the user!

Feedback • Present the map to additional users and collect feedback.


Method: Customer Journey Map

5 components to a Journey Map: Actions, Mindset, Touch points, Pain Points and Moments of Truth.


Method: A Day in the Life

Use when:

Similar to customer journey map for ideation of solutions. Especially if the challenge is the identification of new use cases for a given technology

Concept:

Put your persona in a context.

Duration: 45 min

Depends on the “duration” and details of the day.

How to:

1.Layout the “day in the life” of your persona on a whiteboard using sticky notes.

2.Mention things like main activities, location, interactions, tools etc.

3.Brainstorm for each of the daily steps, whether and how a specific technology could improve this step.




Method: A Day in the Life

x = ?

Technology


Method: Technology Wall

Use when:

For ideation in the context of “solution” like challenges and when you want to relate (a given) technology to the ideation process.

Concept:

First, you have to decide on the technologies and trends, you would like to relate to the ideation process. This can be a given by the challenge/project context or participants brainstorm about it.

Then ideation starts with the question: “What could this technology mean for the “to be” designed solution?”

Duration: 30 min

Depends on the number of iterations/technologies.

How to:

1. Put a large number of flipchart papers on a wall. On these papers write down key technologies.

2.Let the participants pick one technology from the wall .

3. Now let the participants brainstorm on solution ideas that include the technology chosen.

4.Come up with as many ideas as possible and write them on post its.




Method: Technology Wall

Participant picks the technology “voice recognition" and the ideation is about solutions in the medical products field. Now the team has to think about, how voice recognition could affect a respective solution. Another sample could be “in-memory DB” and impact on any IT solution.


Phase: Prototyping

Definition:

Prototyping is the first step to actually feel an idea.

The goal is to develop quick prototypes in order to create a first user experience of how the idea might feel, look like and work like.

Activities:

• Create solution stories

• Sketch solution and scenarios

• Develop low – high fidelity prototypes Making Choices


Method: User Story Mapping

Use when:

User stories help to focus on solving real problems for real people. They facilitate the discussion within the team and help to start prototyping.

Concept:

A user story is a brief statement of intent that describes something the system needs to do for the user. User stories have the following fairly standardized form: As <persona> I want to <need> so that <value>.

Duration: 60 min

• Phrasing of user stories – 45 min

• Discussion – 15 min (depends on details and iterations)

How to:


• The stories are not granular enough to be prototyped.

Vision

• Phrase a short vision for your solution (one sentence).

• Put the names of the key building blocks of your solution on a wall.

User Story

• Phrase typical user stories per persona in scope.

• Write each user story on a sticky note – one user story per note.

Break Down

• Start with high level user stories, also called activities or epics.

• Break the activities or epics down into smaller user stories in the form: As <persona> I want <need> so that <business value>..

Discuss

• Validate your stories with real users.

• Check whether you want to use some of the user stories as a starting point for creating a more detailed prototype.


Method: User Story Mapping

The picture shows the basic format of a “user story mapping” exercise. It starts with a solution vision, which could be an outcome of previous ideation. Then the main solution buildings blocks are listed according to their typical usage sequence (can also be only one block).

Below are the corresponding user stories (epics) per persona and underneath the more detailed stories (“As…I want to…so that…).

As…I want to… so that…

Building blocks

Epics

Vision


Method: Low-Fidelity Prototyping

Use when:

After ideation, the prototype of a solution should be created quickly without the use of technical skills/tools and for immediate validation.

Concept:

Low-Fi prototyping is the first step to actually feel an idea. The goal is to develop quick prototypes in order to create a first user experience of how the idea might feel, look like and work like. The key purpose of a prototype is validation with users. There are may approaches to build a prototype. At the end it has to be any tangible materialization of the solution, which can be presented and validated with users.

Duration: 45 – 60 min

Depends on the type of prototype and level of detail. Typically, at least 45 min for one iteration.

How to:


If team members try to be too perfect. Feeling the idea is key, not perfect make up.

Participants start to move away from their initial idea.

Prioritize

• Prioritize one idea (or a combination of ideas) to be realized as a prototype .

• Start refining ideas in first sketches, user stories or text descriptions . Potentially phrase a brief vision of the aspired solution.

Tinkering

• Start tinkering and make the solution as tangible as possible, for example, a paper box with wireframe sketches on post-its to represent a mobile device, a sketch of an user interface or a hand made model works.

Validation

• Validate the concepts with end users and stakeholders. Collect as much feedback as you can and incorporate it into the prototype .

• Try to increase the desirability and the technical feasibility with each iteration.


Method: Low-Fi Prototyping


Phase: Validation

Definition:

Validation is about grounding the feasibility of ideas with the stakeholders.

At this point it is about gathering feedback on concepts and prototypes, that only the best ideas and concepts get into implementation.

Make sure the presentation is creates the right mindset and is full of emotion in order to establish a check on desirability while bringing in feasibility and viability with the stakeholders, customers and end-users. Apply activities, tools and techniques from the previous phases to iterate.

Activities:


Method: Implementation

Definition:

Depending on the challenge, the actual implementation of the solution can be done in various ways. This ranges from classical project management approaches, organizational change management methodologies to software development and implementation methods.

In any case, achievements and prototypes from the design thinking phases can be reused to streamline implementation activities towards realization and less requirements analysis/blueprinting.

Activities:

Depends on the implementation method.


Method: Business Model Canvas (by Alex Osterwalder)

Use when:

Can be used at the implementation phase. It can also be used for ideation of new business models or any other challenge related to entities with a business-like working model.

Concept:

A business model canvas represents a business model or business case with nine simple building blocks, including customer segments, channels, and relationships; value proposition, key activities, resources and partners; cost structure and revenue streams. The canvas therefore combines the economical viability of a solution with its desirability and feasibility (http://www.businessmodelgeneration.com/canvas)..

Duration:

• Individually fill out the framework – 15 min.

• Build Canvas and iterate – 45 min (depends on details and iterations).

How to:


• There is no airtime for everybody. Canvas creation is dominated by a single or a few team members.

• Not enough quantity/details within the canvas blocks.

Framework

• Get together with the team and hand out the printed canvas to all team members. Ask everybody to fill out the framework individually.

Build Canvas

• Build the canvas collaboratively, starting with the different customer segments to be addressed by the solution. As different customer segments have distinct needs, you need to think of specific value propositions per segment.

• Map out all the remaining building blocks accordingly.

• It is also possible to start the canvas from other “epicenters”, for example, start with a particular technology as key resource.

• Use a large printed canvas (A0 format) or draw the canvas on a whiteboard and use post-its to consolidate the content.

Iterate • Now, iterate the building blocks, for example, with an assessment of risks.


Method: Business Model Canvas

(by Alex Osterwalder)

Design Thinking Method Cards

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