Human Centered Design - "Design Thinking"

We were lucky to attend the California Workforce Association's annual fall conference, Meeting of the Minds three weeks ago. The presentation that really lingered in my mind over the last few weeks was given by Sina Mossayev, a designer from the design firm IDEO.  IDEO was invited to share the recent work they did with state and local WIBs, and how their product design process translates to designing and improving social services as well. 

During the 2 days of the conference following the presentation, regional representatives led an IDEO-inspired design process with participants to solve a regional problem related to workforce development. The exciting thing about bringing this kind of design thinking into our work is it challenges our tendency to say "No" based on funding and regulatory restrictions, and it gives practitioners permission to look at our work from a human-centered perspective. I think the thing that really struck me about the IDEO design process is how seemingly simple, down to earth and fun it is. 

At its core, the design process is three stages:
1) Inspiration  This stage involves clearly defining the problem you wish to solve and the constraints that are relevant to solving it. It also involves really looking at empathizing with the people who will be using the product or service, or experiencing it.

2) Ideation  Spend time brainstorming solutions, both wild and realistic, to the problem at hand. Try to get people from different backgrounds in the conversation to inject fresh thinking and get as many ideas as possible.

3)  Experimentation  Build simple prototypes or simulations to test your best ideas and test it in the environment. Try not to make the prototype too sophisticated. It needs to be just enough for people to get the rough idea and to feel license to make changes to the prototypes.

IDEO's Design Process

We use similar processes in our work helping educators and service providers plan and improve programming. Here are some great resources we like or have found useful.

Design Thinking for Educators Toolkit developed with IDEO and Riverdale Country School for K-12 educators to use this powerful process. 

The Grove Consultants International offers training and consulting on graphic facilitation, visual planning and visual problem solving. Also check out Dan Roam's book the Back of the Napkin for more on visual problem-solving.

Change by Design:  How Design Thinking Transforms Organizations and Inspires Innovation by Tim Brown. This book is a great primer for creative leaders who are looking to understand and integrate design thinking in to planning processes.
  
Finding Your Element:  How to Discover Your Talents and Passions and Transform Your Life by Ken Robinson. I love this book about how to infuse creativity  and creative problem solving into our children's education. This TED Talk by Sir Ken Robinson is fantastic on the history of public education.

To really get your juices flowing, try going to the Design Thinking Meet Up in San Francisco with 542 members. Their next meeting is September 25th at 6:30pm.

Amanda Gerrie and Kim Coulthurst
Pathways Consultants