Design Thinking Workshops
Clients: Various | Role: Design Lead & Facilitator
Menlo Park, CA | March 2017
The Challenge
The target outcome of the workshop and initiative was to develop a strategic alliance between IBM and Facebook that offers customers a platform for identifying omnichannel opportunities and helps those customers achieve their goals.
The Work
We ran a 2-day workshop, with blended teams from IBM and Facebook. We identified top areas of need in the customers omnichannel businesses and exposed new, prioritized ideas for the two companies to partner in and take to market.
The Outcome
Together, we identified 5 plays for both companies to partner on, and 1 play to pilot the partnership. The primary challenge being addressed: Omnichannel retailers want to deliver a more personalized customer experience across the entire shopping journey, but they need to connect systems and signals through identity to drive deeper engagement, LTV, and online + in-store sales.
Montreal, Canada | November 2016
The Challenge
This workshop had two users and problem statements we focused on. A flight attendant, who’s payroll accuracy experience we were looking to improve, and a call center representative, who is not only overwhelmed with the tasks they need to master, but has high attrition.
The Work
We led the two teams through an 8-hour workshop, spread over two days, honing our design prompts, understanding our user through empathy maps and crafting as-is scenario maps. We then ideated, prioritized ideas and then created todos and action items for the outputs.
The Outcome
The participants—many of which had never been exposed to design thinking—were able to quickly gain insight into a new way of working, and rapidly explored ideas to tackle challenging retention issues within Air Canada.
Austin, TX | February 2017
The Challenge
Etihad’s workshop engagement with IBM was two-fold. First, they wanted to explore a common problem statement for their business to learn about the practice of Enterprise Design Thinking. Second, they wanted to explore what a programmatic approach to adopting design thinking could look like within Etihad. We ran the workshops back-to-back over three days.
The Work
Our first workshop explored the “check-in” experience for three different users at the airport for Etihad airlines. We took the team from problem statement identification, through empathy maps and as-is scenario maps, to prototypes and experience based roadmaps. The second workshop was structured around defining a program through the lens of people, practices and places.
The Outcome
Upon completion of the workshops, the team had a foundational understanding of the practice of Enterprise Design Thinking, and the beginnings of an understanding of what adoption of design thinking at scale could look like.
Austin, TX | August 2017
The Challenge
We ran a 2-day workshop with National Air and Space Museum leaders to demonstrate the value of Enterprise Design Thinking and explore how we could improve the museum experience.
The Work
We articulated “walk up” experience ideas for the museum, roadmapped for the creation of an “exclusive” experience and generate a prototype. Activities included: problem rundown, empathy map, stakeholder map, as-is scenario map, big idea vignettes, prioritization grid, needs statements, experience based roadmap, storyboard and hills.
The Outcome
We generated a large amount of output within a single day workshop with a small team. After beginning to work this way with IBM, the team has signed up for our digital enablement platform and are currently exploring wider adoption within the museum.
Little Rock, AR | June 2018
The Challenge
The State of Arkansas, along with business and educational leaders within the state were looking to explore the potential of Arkansas being a worldwide leader in blockchain technology in the food industry. With the support of the Governor, we ran a 1-day design thinking workshop with 70 attendees exploring multiple problem statements across the various groups.
The Work
Some problem statements explored were: “How might we educate and enable the population of Arkansas to succeed in a food industry powered by blockchain?” and “How might the Arkansas government best facilitate the growth and incorporation of blockchain technology into the food industry to be an example to the rest of the country and world.?”
The Outcome
We created and prioritized nine team outputs across four group segments. The outputs were the beginning of a shared vision of the end-state for which Arkansas leverages blockchain and digital technologies for economic development. We defined next steps and key stakeholders for this ongoing effort.
Great Workshops are Always a Team Effort
No workshop ever runs the same. We inevitably pivot from our planned agenda as we respond to what is (or isn’t) working in the thick of the work. They are always team efforts—and our team has delivered over the last few years: 134 internal workshops, 186 client workshops and 1.63 billion client wins impacted