Experienced Coach + Workshop Facilitator
I had the privilege of coaching Azul Seven’s 3-Day Design Thinking Bootcamp in the summer/fall of 2019. Here’s a snapshot of one of the first teams assigned to me, they were amazing. On day one they got a quick run through of the human-centered design methods and completed the infamous gift-giving exercise in 2 hours.
After that teams got right to work! We assigned them a design challenge, prepared them for intercept interviews and put them through an immersive empathy gathering exercise..
Day 1: Empathy Teams practiced interviewing users! They walked up to strangers and talked with people on the street for 2 hours in order to understand the problem from many people’s perspectives.
Teams learned about what makes a good interview and what to watch out for. They were encouraged to go up to people who looked different from them and demoed dos & don’ts of interviewing.
Unpacking Interviews: Teams practiced good note-taking during the interviews so they could come back and share what they heard as a group. Together, they unpacked each interview using empathy maps.
Day 2: Defining — Using insights they gathered through interviewing teams started grouping ideas as they found patterns and themes. They defined Users + Needs + Insights and practiced writing point of view (POV) statements.
Ideation — After getting feedback from the coaches on POV statements teams went into the ideation phase. They practiced effective brainstorming using the How Might We framework to generate as many ideas as possible.
Prototyping: After ideation teams quickly refined ideas, voted using a sticker system and refined POV statements. They made it to the build phase and were challenged to prototype a solution in under 2 hours!
Bias toward action! Teams were learning to shift from thinking and talking to doing! As coaches we stress the bias toward action mindset encouraging teams to start using their hands and building stuff to help further define and refine their concepts.
Day 3: Testing to learn — On the final day teams prepared their prototypes, scripts and research questions and tested their concept with 5-6 real users!
Teams were encouraged to make iterative changes as they learned what worked, what didn’t and what users expect. As coaches we sometimes asked teams to pivot or added constraints to keep them on their feet.
Reflect + Take home exercise: We ended the bootcamp in a circle, a posture we spent most of the 3 days in. As the newly minted design thinkers head off to their regular jobs they reflect on the design thinking mindsets, postures and methods we practiced together.
We concluded with storytelling exercises, teams finally got to see what other teams worked on during the 3-day bootcamp. Some were even inspired to bring their concepts to their home office π Here are some of the fabulous groups I coached. Thank you teams, thank you Azul Seven!
If you’re interested in collaborating for a design thinking bootcamp or other design workshops please get in touch: heatherlee.ux(AT)gmail.
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I’m Heatherlee. An independent research and design consultant with a background in UX, a passion for service design, an interest in biomimicry and a stake in your strategy. Iβm passionate about helping you bridge the gap between your product teams and the people you design for.
Contact info & more about me here.
heatherleenguyen.wordpress.com 
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