Design Thinking Unpacked
In the course of my career, I have planned and facilitated several Design Thinking Workshops, both in person and remote. The first time I facilitated a ‘DT’ workshop, I felt like I had discovered a superpower. It took me back to my design school days, where creative problem-solving was more than just a skill, where we flipped everyday problems upside down, shaking out the “what ifs,” and embracing the “why nots.” The recommendations in this post are drawn from my experience facilitating, co-anchoring, and volunteering in over 30 Design Thinking workshops.
What is Design Thinking?
Design Thinking is a problem-solving approach centered on human needs, creativity, and iterative learning. It emphasizes understanding the user, redefining problems, and crafting innovative solutions. The methodology unfolds in stages: Empathize, Define, Ideate, Prototype, and Test. These steps are iterative, allowing teams to revisit and refine solutions continuously.
What is a Design Thinking Workshop?
A Design Thinking workshop is a structured, hands-on guided session where teams collaborate to address a specific challenge or problem. Workshops can last for a few hours or days, they encourage diverse perspectives, foster creativity, and drive actionable outcomes. The workshops are guided by methods and principles of Design Thinking, enabling participants to ideate, prototype, and validate solutions rapidly.
Why do we need a Design Thinking Workshop?
A successful Design Thinking workshop achieves several key objectives:
Intent: To define a clear problem statement and align on objectives.
Creative Ideas: To encourage free-flowing, innovative ideas without fear of judgment. A Design Thinking workshop may result in groundbreaking solutions that ultimately set the company apart.
Collaboration and Team Building: To build trust and rapport among participants, fostering cross-disciplinary collaboration. A Design Thinking workshop breaks down silos and shows participants how to challenge their assumptions.
Prototype and insights validation: To create tangible representations of ideas and to explore feasibility and usability, test prototypes to validate assumptions and gather user feedback.
Empower: To equip participants with tools and confidence to apply Design Thinking in their everyday work.
“We rely far too exclusively on analytical thinking, which merely refines current knowledge, producing small improvements to the status quo.
To innovate and win, companies need design thinking.”
Who are the actors in a Design thinking workshop?
It is crucial to identify the right participants for the workshop. With the right people it could be the best investment of your time or it could leave you feeling ‘this meeting could have been an email!’
Facilitator: Guides the workshop, ensuring objectives are met. Often, the facilitator also plans and strategizes the workshop. They meet with the Client service representatives, SMEs and Designers ahead of the workshop to present their approach and onboard everyone.
Subject Matter Experts (SMEs): Provide domain-specific insights during the workshp. These are the key people in making suggestions or validating feasibility of an idea or bringing the latest technology trends to the discussion.
Designers and Creatives: Bring ideas to life through visualization and prototyping. They could use multiple mediums to demonstrate the ideas discussed in the workshop.
Users /Customers: Offer real-world perspectives for validation. Highest participation is expected from these group as they understand the real gaps and challenges for the problem we are trying to solve in the workshop.
Stakeholders: Ensure alignment with business goals and constraints. They have a real time vision of the product or service in discussion and help prioritize the immediate needs and future scope.
How to run a Design Thinking Workshop?
The prepration of a Design Thinking workshop begins weeks in advance of the actual workshop day.
Preparation - Content: Define the challenge, set goals, and curate a diverse group of participants. Usually this will be a response to a request from CSG or leadership or a Account Managers who seek to see their current challenges from a DT lens. Plan and strategize a format including the DT methods.
Preparation - Logistics: Once the strategy is set, for an in person workshop, set up the space, print out the DT methods templates, arrange for stationary and props. For online workshops, set up the space in a collaboration tool, test out the meeting invites and breakout rooms in advance. It would be a good idea to group participants ahead of the workshop depending on their expertise and skill set.
Kickoff: Begin with an icebreaker to energize the room and introduce the agenda. I have always been a fan of two truths and a lie, it just works for all age groups! It is so important to warm up to activate the creative side of the brain.
Empathize and Define: Facilitate exercises like empathy maps, five whys etc to understand the problem deeply. Encourage the participants to identify deep motivations and assumptions and agree on the key problem to solve for.
Ideate: Conduct brainstorming sessions, use templates like journey maps, business model canvas or role pay to find themes and identify key moments of your product or service. Importantly, encourage wild ideas.
Prototype and Test: Guide participants to create low-fidelity prototypes and gather quick feedback. From UX wireframe screens to Lego building blocks, I have seen participants build amazing prototypes to communicate their ideas.
Reflect and Wrap Up: Summarize findings, capture key insights, and outline next steps. Its a great practice to set aside time for a share out session at the end of the workshop to ensure that ideas are communicated across the room, often participants are seen building upon ideas from the other team to paint a detailed picture.
What is the Output of a Workshop?
The outputs of a Design Thinking workshop can take various forms, depending on its objectives:
A defined problem statement, user journey map, existing state workflows, future state workflows.
A repository of creative ideas for problem solving.
Concepts, Prototypes or wireframes.
A roadmap or action plan for implementation (eg: 30 - 60 - 90 day plan)
Deliverables are often sent as a packet to the participants, documenting the outcome of the workshop at each step and making suggestions for further steps.
In Summary
Design Thinking workshops are not just about solving a problem—they are about creating an inclusive, empowering environment where innovation thrives. By fostering empathy, creativity, and collaboration, these workshops generate actionable solutions that resonate with users and stakeholders alike. Whether you're addressing a product challenge or tackling organizational change, Design Thinking provides the framework to turn complex problems into opportunities for innovation.