Pre-Workshop
- Facilitator has explored and analysed the data to define a problem statement.
- Facilitator selects the team members appropriate for the workshop and aligned with the ‘ARE IN’ model.
- Facilitator sends team members all of the pre-reading including personas, the problem statement, rules of the workshop – language usage, environment and time required.
- Facilitator ensures that all members are present for the required amount of time.
The Environment
What and why?
For workshopping to be the most effective, all team members should be in the same room over the workshop to collaborate. Consideration should be made to the current environmental situation with outbreaks of community transmission of COVID-19. This has and will limit interaction and in-person collaboration. Contention strategies should be made if members cannot be in one location to facilitate the sprint.
Either way, the team should be away from distractions of day to day business. This includes no other scheduled meetings, no foot traffic from employees, cleaners and coffee machine tuners. An offsite location could be used and is away from any of the distractions previously mentioned.
Language
Communication will be critical for successful collaboration; speed; and safety of the team. The Facilitator should create a rule that jargon and acronyms will not be used.
The Team
To select the members of the team the “ARE IN” model taken from Lewrick, Link & Leifer (2008) will be used. This will ensure diversity of thought as well as subject matter experts from various departments who are competent in their job. The team will be selected by the Facilitator.
Authority – Who has the power to initiate change? -Head of Classifieds, CEO and Head of Product
Resources – Who contributes specific necessary resources? – Product Managers, Designers, Software Engineer, Finance
Expertise – Who has experience and a very extensive range of knowledge? – Long standing customer facing employees e.g sales & customer support, research teams
Information – Who provides us with information, including the informal kind? – Analysts, customer support
Need – Who knows the needs of our customers and users? – Sales, Customer Support
The Problem Statement
A problem statement is also known as a design challenge. It should be expressed as a question which generates thought and exploration.
Be careful though, too broad and the team will not have enough time to explore all opportunities within the brainstorming stage. Too narrow, and it will result in innovation being limited. The goal is to explore and find an answer to the question for the user. Note that it is for the user/customer; not the business or the team members. Empathy is the key here.
Prior to the workgroup coming together, the facilitator will prepare all of the prereading, analysis for the workgroup and will have the problem statement ready for the team to solve. The outcome will align with the viability, desirability and feasibility of the business.
The Workshop
Introduction – Outline the segments of the workshop (10 min)
- Roles & responsibilities
- Goal of the workshop
- Expectations of participation
- Rules
- Setting a safe environment to build trust and collaboration
Icebreaker (15 min)
Optional if team members know each other.
Setting the scene (5 min)
- Personas are reviewed (it is expected that all pre-reading has been completed)
- The problem statement is reviewed (it is expected that all pre-reading has been completed)
Divergent stage (15 min)
Taken from https://medium.com/@i.shubhangich/design-thinking-divergence-and-convergence-cycles-3ce7a6f27815#:~:text=In%20design%20thinking%20the%20number,map%20of%20the%20design%20process.
Highlighted above shows two cycles of divergent to convergent cycles. In this part, we are solely focused on the 2nd phase. The Facilitator has already completed the preparation work and defined the problem statement. The team now diverges (brainstorms) ‘together alone’ on potential solutions to the problem statement.
Music can be used to bring out creativity.
Together Alone
Not all team members will operate the same way. Team members may be introverted or extroverted. They may be experts in the field that the team is working on and may have a bias. To truly achieve diversity of thought and avoid group think the team is to brainstorm by themselves, in the same room, silently, together alone.
Convergent stage (30 min)
It is the Facilitator’s role to bring the ideas together. The use of post it notes on a whiteboard is used by grouping the ideas into themes. Once ideas are grouped together and presented to the team, a heat map can be used for each team member to rank ideas by placing a sticker on the ideas that they wish to move forward with.