Design Thinking Workshops

• Design thinking workshops are collaborative, work-based sessions centered on the Design Thinking process.
• These workshops can be in-person or run remotely.
• Workshop duration varies from two hours to a whole week, depending on the context.

Focus of Design Thinking Workshops

• Sensitivity: Addresses real user problems and builds empathy for targeted users/customers.
• Ideation: Generates multiple ideas and possible solutions.
• Prototyping and testing: Creates prototypes to test ideas with users or agents.

Need for Design Thinking Workshops

• Incorporating design thinking leads to user-centric solutions, improving customer satisfaction while saving costs.
• Design Thinking workshops foster a better organizational culture with a focus on creativity.
• Participating employees develop problem-solving skills through training.
• Team innovation cultivated through collaborative learning.
• Design thinking improves organizational competitive advantage, resulting in superior products and services.

Stages of Design Thinking Workshop

• Design thinking workshops have two stages: planning and the workshop itself.
• The planning stage includes defining learning goals, pre-meeting arrangements, checking the workshop environment, developing activity flow, and preparing study material.
• The workshop stage includes an introduction, problem statement definition, idea testing, prototyping, testing, feedback, and closing.

Planning Stage of Design Thinking Workshop

• Learning Goals: Identify learning goals for the workshop via information collected from participants, unit heads, and stakeholders regarding organizational challenges.
• The learning outcomes should align with workshop objectives, fostering a design thinking culture.
• Pre-Meeting: The organizing team confirms the workshop's purpose, prepares the agenda, and informs design thinking trainers about participant backgrounds, including job titles, ages, and experience.
• Checking the Ambience: The design requires a well-suited ambience with seating, venue, and electronic devices to help improve the environment and learning.
• Flow of Activities: The design thinking workshop prepares suitable activities for insights into organizational problems, the organization collaborates with trainers to develop activities, including games, lectures, and discussions to achieve workshop learning goals.
• Study Material: Participants receive relevant study material one week before the workshop to allow them to prepare.

Workshop Stage

• Introduction to the Workshop: Participants need to define the right thoughts of the flow of the workshop.
• Incorporates sensitivity, explanation, ideation, prototyping, and evaluation to enhance learning.
• Real-world success stories shared to motivate participants.
• Define Problem Statement: Participants narrow the design challenge, with trainers using techniques like empathy mapping to create vision statements.
• Idea Testing: The design thinking process focuses on idea development and solutions, with trainers using brainstorming and mind mapping techniques.
• Prototype: Participants can build prototypes based on their ideas while other participants survey and collect information. Trainers support team work and use journey mapping to understand customer preferences.
• Testing: Prototypes are evaluated for the challenge scenario and business process, with feedback provided to match organizational and customer needs.
• Closing the Workshop: Trainers provide feedback, motivating participants to apply design thinking concepts; the benefits of design thinking are highlighted to improve work processes.