Challenge    I recently attended a 1-day design thinking bootcamp where a diverse group of individuals  learned the theories and practices behind design thinking. We were tasked with addressing a  big question to practice design thinking: How might we design the best workplace in the world?  Since it was just a day-long workshop, we had to move through each phase of design thinking  quickly. We started by defining “workplace” and “best” and completing empathy interviews with  stakeholders to understand their pain points and how we might address them. Lastly, we  developed a prototype and conducted a learning launch to test our assumptions.    Selection    After examining “what is” and “what if”, we were ready to develop a prototype that we could test  through a learning launch. We determined the questions we needed to confirm and disconfirm  through interviews with other attendees of the workshop.  The learning launch method allowed  us to quickly and effectively test our key assumptions to understand if our idea could move to  Launch 2.0 or if we needed to pivot entirely.    Application    Our team defined “workplace” as the physical space a person enters each day for work and  “best” as a place that inspires ownership and personal connection. As a result, we decided to  architect a new office design on paper for our prototype. This design involved a “Choose Your  Own Adventure” aspect whereby there were areas of the office floorplan for all types of working  and learning styles - a brainstorming room, phone booth, private offices, open desks,  conference rooms, comfortable couches and swings, and communal space for lunch and happy  hour.    For the first learning launch, our team wrote out our key assumptions and developed a set of  questions that we wanted to ask our audience. We focused on understanding where people  would want to spend the majority of their time in the office design so we could confirm or  disconfirm if open and comfortable workspace is even desired. We shared a large design of our  office with someone who usually works from home. Due to the nature of our short workshop, we  only had about seven minutes to ask questions and learn from our interviewee. Ultimately, the  assumptions we were trying to test were the correct ones but we could have developed better  questions to get at the quality of data we were seeking.     While we didn’t have time to complete a second learning launch, for this phase I would have  kept the same prototype design but developed a better set of questions to ask a wider audience  (since we only had time to interview one person).     Insight

Because of the assumption we developed about “the best workplace”, our physical prototype  design was absolutely necessary to give our audience a visual of our idea. While our initial  empathy interviews illustrated that employees sought more ownership and personal connection  in their work, we had to test that customers would actually utilize various workspaces in order to  accomplish ownership and personal connection. Since we only interviewed one person who  works from home, she felt a connection to the closed office spaces rather than the open and  communal spaces. This was the opposite of our assumption but was also a very small sample  size for us to determine next steps.     Approach    Ultimately, it was very clear that we needed more and better data in order to properly test our  assumptions. In the future, our team needs to agree on the number of people we will interview  and have more time to conduct the interviews in order to successfully test the assumption and  determine next steps for Launch 2.0 and our idea in general.


Challenge I recently attended a 1 - day design thinking bootcamp where a diverse group of individuals learned the theories and practices behind design thinking . We were tasked with addressing a big question to practice design thinking : How might we design the best workplace in the world ? Since it was just a day - long workshop , we had to move through each phase of design thinking quickly . We started by defining “ workplace ” and “ best ” and completing empathy interviews with stakeholders to understand their pain points and how we might address them . Lastly , we developed a prototype and conducted a learning launch to test our assumptions . Selection After examining “ what is ” and “ what if ” , we were ready to develop a prototype that we could test through a learning launch . We determined the questions we needed to confirm and disconfirm through interviews with other attendees of the workshop . The learning launch method allowed us to quickly and effectively test our key assumptions to understand if our idea could move to Launch 2.0 or if we needed to pivot entirely . Application Our team defined “ workplace ” as the physical space a person enters each day for work and “ best ” as a place that inspires ownership and personal connection . As a result , we decided to architect a new office design on paper for our prototype . This design involved a “ Choose Your Own Adventure ” aspect whereby there were areas of the office floorplan for all types of working and learning styles - a brainstorming room , phone booth , private offices , open desks , conference rooms , comfortable couches and swings , and communal space for lunch and happy hour . For the first learning launch , our team wrote out our key assumptions and developed a set of questions that we wanted to ask our audience . We focused on understanding where people would want to spend the majority of their time in the office design so we could confirm or disconfirm if open and comfortable workspace is even desired . We shared a large design of our office with someone who usually works from home . Due to the nature of our short workshop , we only had about seven minutes to ask questions and learn from our interviewee . Ultimately , the assumptions we were trying to test were the correct ones but we could have developed better questions to get at the quality of data we were seeking . While we did n’t have time to complete a second learning launch , for this phase I would have kept the same prototype design but developed a better set of questions to ask a wider audience ( since we only had time to interview one person ) . Insight Because of the assumption we developed about “ the best workplace ” , our physical prototype design was absolutely necessary to give our audience a visual of our idea . While our initial empathy interviews illustrated that employees sought more ownership and personal connection in their work , we had to test that customers would actually utilize various workspaces in order to accomplish ownership and personal connection . Since we only interviewed one person who works from home , she felt a connection to the closed office spaces rather than the open and communal spaces . This was the opposite of our assumption but was also a very small sample size for us to determine next steps . Approach Ultimately , it was very clear that we needed more and better data in order to properly test our assumptions . In the future , our team needs to agree on the number of people we will interview and have more time to conduct the interviews in order to successfully test the assumption and determine next steps for Launch 2.0 and our idea in general .