029 - Culture matters! How to apply Design Thinking across organisational cultures – with Bernhard Ferro

In this episode, I talk to Bernhard Ferro, a Senior Design Thinker and expert in user experience (UX) design with a background in behavioural sciences. We talk about Design Thinking and how its strict methodology can help us when dealing with difficult organizational cultures.

Although Bernhard believes that "Design Thinking cannot fix a broken team", he shares how a Design Thinking workshop once contributed to the team-building process.  In the show, you will learn how you can prepare teams who have never experienced a co-creation workshop and what it takes to effectively manage expectations.

Don’t miss the part in which Bernhard shares how a CEO turned into a "prototyping machine" and what exercise triggered the magical effect.

"Everything can be prototyped.
Prototyping is a mindset."     

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Questions and Answers

[1:16] What's your story? How did you get into Design Thinking?

[3:50] How would you summarise your vita in one hashtag?

[4:38] What have you learned from behavioural sciences that help you to design workshops?

[5:38] What's your strategy to remove distraction?

[8:17] Does the application of the Design Thinking methodology depend on the organisational culture? 

[12:13] Within the workshop process, when are you more designer and when are you more facilitator?

[15:15] What is "interaction design"?

[16:25] How do you use your knowledge in UX in the workshop design process? 

[18:29] Do you adjust your workshops depending on the group's culture? What would you do if you know the group tends to lengthy discussions?

[19:40] Can you have a successful Design Thinking workshop with a toxic team?

[21:33] Through the eyes of a behavioural scientist, what makes Design Thinking so favourable for team building?

[22:57] With whom are you aligning in the workshop preparation process?

[24:55] What's your role in terms of expectation management when it comes to expected results or outcomes?

[29:02] What does it take for a team to have a successful Design Thinking workshop? 

[31:24] Why do workshops fail?

[35:40] How would you prepare a participant for a potentially difficult workshop situation?

[37:38] What's wrong about "group discussions"?

[41:27] What's your favourite exercise to get groups become familiar with prototyping?

[45:18] How do you prioritize ideas?

[47:51] What advice would you give someone who wants to run Design Thinking workshops?

[54:13] What shall a listener remember from our conversation?

 

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Connect to Bernhard 

on LinkedIn

Transcript

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SPEAKER_01 0:02

What does it take to make workshops work? And how can we facilitate collaboration that actually sticks and leads to results? My name is Miriam Hapnus, and it is my mission to help you to make workshops work. Today with me on the show is Bernhard Farrell. He's a design thinker and a UX designer. And he guides me through the design thinking process. And we discuss a lot about the difference between a design and a facilitator and the impact of company culture and geographical culture and personality types on group dynamics inside the workshop room. So stay tuned. Hello Bernhard.

SPEAKER_02 0:43

Hi Miriam.

SPEAKER_01 0:45

Good to see you today to talk about company culture and meeting facilitation and design thinking.

SPEAKER_02 0:53

Good. I'm looking forward to this.

SPEAKER_01 0:55

Me too. Maybe before we start jumping into the topic, I would be curious to hear about your story. So you're a design thinker and a UX designer. So how did you end up doing what you do? Because you do have a background in psychology, if I'm not mistaken.

SPEAKER_02 1:16

That's actually true. But it's not psychology, it's actually behavioral sciences. So it was a kind of mixed study of human biology with a focus on human behavior from a biological perspective combined with a psychological perspective. This time it was actually quite easy to kind of mix up studies and create your own studies in Austria. Now it's a little bit more difficult. And I had a really, really inspiring uh professor at uh the biology department because he was not just a visionary guy, he was the only biology professor I know so far who was also capable of programming in two different programming languages, actually, on the computer at that time. And he worked on neural networks and he was really looking into the future and he was even predicting the internet. So this was kind of nice for me always to kind of look beyond the boundaries of the study. So I just combined it together and focused on actually how humans behave and how the mind works. This was also the most exciting thing for me to understand.

SPEAKER_01 2:29

And then was the next step into UX design then a natural one?

SPEAKER_02 2:35

No, I I had to do my civil service at that time at the hospital in Vienna for a year. And after that, still at that time there was no EX design, there was even no design studies so far, in the sense they exist today. There was just industrial design existing at the university, and actually informatics at the University of Technology with some usability engineering, how it was called at that time in the late 90s. But I actually started to play around with Photoshop at that time, and during my civil service at the end, a friend called me. He was working for the Austrian broadcasting company at the time. They need information designers. We're building up the new website for the company. Would you like to join? I said, why not? And from there on I kind of moved on within the internet industry and software industry, and actually learned everything by myself. Reading blogs, watching videos, trying out new tools, see what's coming ahead, or try to uh actually try to see what's coming ahead and jump actually on it. Try it out, play around and yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:45

So if you had to summarize yourself into one hashtag, what would it be?

SPEAKER_02 3:50

Inspiration.

SPEAKER_01 3:52

Inspiration. For whom or for what?

SPEAKER_02 3:57

For myself, because I'm curious. But also inspiring other people is actually the most rewarding thing you can actually get, especially in the workshops. So we see when you see these aha moments in the faces of people, and they actually you see how the thinking is changing, and they're really having these aha moments, and okay, I can make this totally different, and oh, that's so fascinating.

SPEAKER_01 4:24

This is actually if you see the spark in the eyes.

SPEAKER_02 4:28

Yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:30

So what have you learned from your background in biology and psychology and generating this inspiration in a workshop?

SPEAKER_02 4:38

It helped me in I'm still quite a good observer, I think, when it comes to to human and human behavior. And it also helped me to with this kind of knowledge how the human mind works. For example, so people get distracted very fast, you know, by a lot of stuff, especially in this time with this with all the messaging stuff. And so, actually, this helped me to kind of also shape the methodologies in the workshop to keep the people as untracted as possible, for example. Yeah, so this is one thing, yeah. And the other thing is actually observing behavior helps me kind of predict maybe the next steps and in which direction maybe the people are heading in the workshop. So this is provides me some help, let's put it some support in order to get the things a little bit more smooth within the workshop.

SPEAKER_01 5:34

Yeah. So what is your key strategy to remove distraction?

SPEAKER_02 5:38

Yeah, actually, the methodology speaks for himself because a design thinking workshop is highly structured. So it actually kind of forces the people in a friendly way to follow a yeah, even sometimes tough script. So, for example, when we think about values, I'm always using this, I call it a loan together method. So there's actually no group discussion. So I'm telling everybody now you have 10 minutes to think about all the values the new software may provide to customers and to the business. You do it on your own, you do it silently, and then the group comes together and you share it individually with the team. So this by methodology, it creates focus, it forces to people. And it even everybody is also joining because if you see the other colleagues writing down, shotting notes, catching stuff, you won't be the one left alone that is kind of providing no input at all. So yeah, it's a kind of positive pressure in the sense that it forces you to focus on just one thing without being influenced by hierarchies or your boss or your colleague or actually the culture within the company.

SPEAKER_01 6:53

Yeah, and we're gonna talk about that in just a bit before I would be curious, because 10 minutes sounds very long to me. And I experienced this moment when the first people are actually finished writing down their ideas, and then you have the silence coming in, the silence where participants may not know what to do, whether they're allowed to do something different. How do you deal with this moment when the first are already done with the individual exercises?

SPEAKER_02 7:26

Actually, I try to handle it as flexible as possible. If you see the faces get bored after five minutes, I immediately stop it. If I see people highly engaged after 10 and a half minutes, I still give them an extra two minutes. But I I won't kind of follow it in a very strict way. It's just a message I convey to the people stay focused for the next minutes. It's it's not about eight or ten or twelve minutes, it's just about staying focused.

SPEAKER_01 7:56

I see that. And to come back to the cultural part, so applying something so structured and scripted like the design thinking method, do you think that its application depends on the company culture, or is it beneficial to every context independent of the culture?

SPEAKER_02 8:17

I think it's actually beneficial for any context because it goes beyond actually cultural boundaries. It or let's put it the other way around, goes actually back to really to human nature and uh focuses on what people are really able to come up with. So really creating ideas without being influenced by colleagues, by culture, by hierarchies, whatever, by kind of a certain way of decision making. So there is some point that's different when it comes to decision making, there culture comes into place because culture actually influences the way decisions are made. If you're part of a more hierarchical structure where you have strong decision makers on the top, then because let's put it this way if you have your if the people came up with uh everybody came with 10 ideas on a certain piece of software, actually at the end we have to nail it down, we have to boil it down to the most important ones, and here decision making comes into play. And then I kind of have a research upfront how the group actually works. Uh, before I worked for a Scandinavian company's hierarchies over there are very flat, and the decision is actually made more by the group. Yes, there are decision makers, but they're even kind of open to what the how the group thinks and decides. Within the bank, I'm currently working. This is a little bit more hierarchical, in the sense there's most of the time there's a very strong decision maker. What I do, I always encourage them to let the team actually put their ideas, uh, their voting actually on the ideas to the poster because this is very valuable for you as a decision maker to know how your team actually thinks. But at the end, it's you to decide because you have the KPI, you are responsible for this. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:18

So you would um create a sort of heat map through dot voting.

SPEAKER_02 10:22

Yes, there's a dot voting, but I also use kind of play money, for example. When it comes really to uh paper prototypes, I give everyone kind of a budget, and they have to go through the ideas and say, if you would be the product manager, in what kind of ideas would you like to invest based on the values we created up front in the beginning? So this is also kind of referring back to what we are really aiming at. So the values we actually want to provide to us as a bank and also to our customers. Yeah, so not just decide on the gut filling, decide on the values. But then you can get kind of heat maps with hundreds and thousands and five hundreds. If I have again the decision maker, the decision maker gets two or three times the budget, you know, because at the end he has actually kind of paid for this piece of software to into life, yes, literally.

SPEAKER_01 11:21

Yes. I like the idea with the play money because it brings a piece of reality to the entire process. Yes. And this brings me back to one question I think we discussed in our briefing before about the difference between a designer and a facilitator. And I would like to reopen this discussion maybe in this context, if you don't mind. Because the guidance through the process of decision making for me is pure facilitation. Whereas the setting of using play money and maybe visualizing the values and this entire process might be more design. How would you see your role in a design thinking process or workshop? Where's your role more of a designer and when does it become more of a facilitator?

SPEAKER_02 12:13

The workshop actually starts before the workshop actually starts, what I like to say, because it's preparation is very important, and it's about alignment up front, it's about aligning the agenda, the way we work actually in the workshop. Because usually when a group approaches me to do a design thinking workshop, usually they have no experience with design thinking workshops at all. So they are not kind of the group, yes. So they are not familiar with the way of working within the workshop and do a lot of alignment and communication up front. So in this part, I'm more of the designer. Yeah, I'm kind of crafting the story for them to understand them very easily, actually, operating mainly with photos from past workshops, because I think this is the most convincing one. Just actually using no slide decks at all, besides putting some agenda points on it, but putting there a lot of photos from past workshops, and you see the people, you see the walls covered with posted with sketches, you see the tables are covered with markers and play money and how do people react. They get curious. Actually, most of them get curious. So they are kind of. I'm using here the role of the designer to constantly conveying visual messages to their subconsciousness and consciousness, so they actually won't get let's put it this way, they won't be too surprised when coming to the workshop and everything looks different. So, yeah. So, what I tell them before, it's not about putting the laptop in the center, the coffee cup to the left and the phone to the right, and having discussions, this won't happen. So, we'll be very clear, and I use design as a means of conveying this message until the workshop starts. Preparing the workshop room is the next step before the workshop starts, also about design. Putting the posters or even printing them out with nice logos, putting the agenda there, having the tables prepared so everybody has a place. There is already something to drink, there's some sweets, there is post-its, sketch notes, everything prepared. And it looks it looks actually nice, and it actually also conveys the the message this is well prepared. Yeah, yeah. I appreciate your attendance here, so I care for you by providing the best possible stage to make you kind of empower you to be yeah, be magic at the end. Leave your usual way of working and yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:56

Yes, and I think it also shows respect to the participants that you're going out of your way to make it as easy for them to facilitate their collaborative and creative process. Yes. Is this what you mean when you say interaction design?

SPEAKER_02 15:15

Yeah, interaction design is actually kind of an old term now. It was used in the 90s and the early 2000s, it's kind of replaced by UX design. So it's more where it's not really about graphical design, where you really focus on the visual presentation, it's really about the interactive experience you're focusing. What happens if you click on the button? What opens? What do you see? How do you communicate the change to the user? Where are elements placed? How do they look like? How do they behave? So it's really about the dialogue between the technology and the human you're deciding.

SPEAKER_01 15:54

So, would you use your insights from UX or interaction design to design a workshop and then also adjust it to a respective culture? Because I can imagine that in the in the Scandinavian company where you work before, that you mentioned your participants might not be as surprised or taken out of their comfort zone by such a workshop as opposed to a financial institution or a bank.

SPEAKER_02 16:26

The difference was as was actually not that big. The Scandinavians are also kind of surprised because if there is no culture of design thinking, the usual kind of business behavior shows up having lengthy discussions on topics with poor outcomes at the end. So this is there's no difference. But the difference is how the people actually behave in the workshop, how they interact with each other, how they make decisions. That's the difference where the culture comes actually into place. Yeah, so for example, if you take a guy from Finland or Sweden, usually people seem more cool, more direct in their communication, more straightforward, but very to the point. For example, here in the bank, we have a lot of people from Eastern Europe or even Southeast Europe, so from Croatia up to Russia, and here behaviors expressed more emotional, more direct. They talk actually much more than people, because interacting with each other, communicating to each other is a very important thing of expressing one state, and this is also part of the culture. So for this part, it's even a bigger challenge for me to work with these guys because they usually have an even stronger tendency to kind of start uh discuss about here and to derail. But the the actual thing is they expect um my guidance because if they see the workshop is well prepared and the the guidance as a facilitator is is accepted and and and and helps them to kind of create actionable results at the end, they fully trust me that I can go on. So here the facilitator comes more into play.

SPEAKER_01 18:13

So if you know that you will work with a group that rather engages in lengthy discussions as opposed to a group that is rather straightforward and short in their communication, would you adjust your workshop design?

SPEAKER_02 18:29

No. Maybe for the people that have a stronger tendency to discuss, I would um add another hour in my workshop schedule. But I actually would use the same methodology because the same methodology methodology are actually based on psychology, on human psychology. And this is on a level where it's actually goes beyond any culture. It's really about how the human mind works, how how a human mind focuses, how it gets distracted. So this is beyond, for me, it's beyond any cultural boundary.

SPEAKER_01 19:05

And this refers to culture as geographic framework. Yeah. When it comes to company culture, then we're talking about a different impact, I guess, on the group dynamics in a workshop. So when I imagine a very hierarchical, maybe a blaming culture, maybe a toxic culture, do you think that a design thinking workshop with good sound results at the end is actually possible in such an environment?

SPEAKER_02 19:41

No, I don't think so, to be honest. Because design thinking cannot fix a broken team. You know? What it can do is if the people still have at least some openness left in their mind towards each other, then it can help to kind of get an exchange for uh on ideas, alignment on a certain topic beyond the usual way of maybe toxic discussions, because they are kind of guided by a facilitator. And there were all of all of the team members who were able to express their personal view without being silenced by others. Yeah, I had a workshop in the past in Finland with my old company, and there was actually a team uh coming from the Czech Republic, and after the workshop, the workshop really went nice. And after the workshop, some of the guys told me it was actually very helpful for the team as well. It was kind of a team-building event. Yeah. But I didn't this know before. So I would apply always the same thing, but if the team is really, if you really have this toxic culture, I think this won't work.

SPEAKER_01 21:02

Maybe also because the people won't have the creative freedom if their brain is constantly on defense mode or danger mode, maybe they don't even have the openness to really engage in a creative process.

SPEAKER_02 21:17

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 21:18

So through your eyes of a psychologist or a behavioral scientist, what do you think are the building blocks that make the the design thinking process so favorable for team building?

SPEAKER_02 21:33

The first thing is I think I'm not sure if this is about design thinking, but it's really about building a trustworthy relationship to the people up front before actually the workshop starts. So this pre workshop work actually for me is even as important as the workshop itself, and from my point of view, underestimated. So building up relationships, personal relationships to the people, try to understand what they're Really aiming at what's important to them and give them at least the feeling okay, I try to understand you what's important for you. So this is one thing. So the next thing is this, and this goes hand in hand with what uh with the trustworthy relationship is managing expectations. You really need to understand what is their goal, why they want to kind of use this methodology now. Sometimes I have this, I always have this interview with the people up front where you really try to understand what they are really aiming at, what what problem do they actually want to solve? Sometimes it's too big, sometimes there are too many people involved. So we have to get this very clear.

SPEAKER_01 22:44

Can I briefly interrupt just to clarify? When you say they, with whom do you have these discussions? Would it be the one or two sponsors? Would it be all the participants? Would it be a leadership team?

SPEAKER_02 22:57

It depends. Usually there's one guy approaching me. I hear from another colleague, you did these workshops. Can we also do a workshop? You say yes for sure. And then usually I have a first briefing meeting with him. What's their topic? What problem do they want to solve? And if we kind of then I tell him how the workshop is actually laid out, show him some examples from past workshops and give him a first understanding what this I'm thinking workshop is about. And then we go even more into the details that we say, okay, we'll set up an agenda for this. And the next step is actually to align the agenda but with the whole workshop team. Usually it's just 30-40 minutes. But the important thing is that everybody that is really supposed to come to the workshop actually gets these messages upfront, how the workshop is laid out, how it is designed, what is the goal, how we're gonna work over there actually. Uh I show him the lot of pictures from past workshops. So it's constantly conveying this visual message about how design thinking actually works from my perspective. So at this time the the the team comes into play, and then again, uh, usually maybe there's even uh a second alignment on some details. So at least one of the guys, usually the guy who is kind of organizing the workshop from the team side, is kind of um my single point of contact, but the team that's actually behind this is also kind of uh in contact with me.

SPEAKER_01 24:32

Also for expectation management reasons.

SPEAKER_02 24:34

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 24:35

So, what is your responsibility as a host of this workshop in terms of expectation management? Because I can imagine that someone who has never experienced a design thinking workshop and then sees all these pictures and maybe reads about it and then thinks that everything is possible and the sky is the limit.

SPEAKER_02 24:55

Yeah, that's a very good point, actually, because I always tell the people, guys, we're just building a foundation, it's nothing else. It's there's still no house on it, yeah. But in order to build a proper house, you need a good foundation. You know, it's we build this foundation in just some hours. Yeah, it's a very good start, but it's just the start. Yeah, yeah. And that's uh the point you you raised, is actually very important because sometimes the people think okay, they get out, they enter the workshop, they come out of the workshop with a final specification for the software. I tell them right up front this will not happen. So I'm not just telling them what the output will be, I also go even beyond this in terms of what will happen with the output because it is very important to tell the people what will happen after the workshop. The problem with some workshops is that there's just the workshop, and now what we're gonna do with this, you know. So that's why this prototyping comes into place. There will be a prototype afterwards, and we will together work on this as a team, but the workshop itself is just a foundation, you know, nothing else. A good foundation, but a foundation.

SPEAKER_01 26:06

And would you be involved then in the follow-up as well? I think just from my perception, I think that would be the benefit of having an in-house facilitator, because you're facilitating these workshops for your colleagues all working for the same bank, right?

SPEAKER_02 26:23

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 26:24

So you might have the opportunity or possibility to follow up and support.

SPEAKER_02 26:32

Usually I follow up because now the designer comes into play with the prototyping. You know, and the prototyping is the boiled-down version of all the insights we created in the workshop. So we have this very concrete vision, and this is actually a piece of this vision you can share with developers, with other stakeholders. You can have uh detailed discussions on the team with this. Sometimes we even have follow-up workshops. So we created a prototype, and now with the team, I'm creating a follow-up workshop with the potential users for this prototype. So these are internal bank users. We're actually kind of replicating the workshop and see what will the outcome with the users, and then kind of do an overlap with it and see if if there are anything matches, you know. Yeah, so usually there are follow-ups, at least when it comes to prototyping. This is the actually the minimum. And at least always provide also some photo documentation and written down uh highlights out of the workshop. So, what are the top values? What are the use cases? How does the user situation look like? Uh, what are the the most important feature ideas, and then some photos from the from the paper prototypes.

SPEAKER_00 27:52

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SPEAKER_01 28:01

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SPEAKER_02 28:30

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 28:31

What would be and what you said before that you don't see it possible to have a proper design thinking workshop in a toxic culture because design thinking, quote, cannot fix a broken team. I love that. What do you think are the prerequisites for a team or a company or a culture? What in terms of open-mindedness, maybe, what do you need to have a success through a design thinking workshop?

SPEAKER_02 29:02

There might be an existing pain that the way they worked so far didn't work, let's put it this way, or doesn't yield the expected results. So they're kind of open to work in a different way. So that might be one thing. The other one is just yeah, it's also about the people within the team. It also usually depends on the team lead. If the team lead is a curious guy, what I uh saw so far is that also some of the people within the team are usually curious guys. So curiosity is also very important in terms of I'm not gonna expect a certain result, I'm open to what result might appear at the end. Openness, yeah. I think that are the key drivers actually for having a good workshop from the participant side.

SPEAKER_01 30:02

Yeah. And when you said that companies might or teams might have experienced other workshops that didn't work or that didn't provide the outcomes that they expected. What is the bottleneck? Why don't other methodologies don't work as effectively?

SPEAKER_02 30:20

It's hard to say. Um if if the methodology is not is the is the reason for a design thinking workshop that didn't work, or is it the way it actually was facilitated or prepared? It's hard to say. I think personally um design thinking cannot solve problems, but if applied well, it can always provide ideas and strategies to tackle any kind of problems. So I didn't have really one workshop that failed in the sense, because I invested a lot of time always in this preparation thing. So I cannot stress this enough. If you really get to know the people and have this alignment and this open communication, still there can be effects you can't control, but it's hard to say. From my perspective, it actually worked in a lot of different settings so far. So, what is a failed workshop? Actually, maybe there is no failed workshop, there's only a certain outcome you might interpret as a I don't know, as failing. Depends. I always tell the people the outcome also can be that we the end say this is not buildable, or we should think about a totally different way to approach the topic. This can also be an outcome.

SPEAKER_01 31:48

Or maybe we don't need something new because we have everything already. I had a conversation with someone, they were trying to do a project on a new internet, they wanted an entire new intranet, and then they realized that actually they had an intranet, but nobody was using it. So maybe they didn't need the new product, but just fixing the old one. So that's a great outcome. I think for me, a failed workshop would be if there's no sound communication. So maybe if the participants start shouting and screaming at each other, or they don't collaborate, they don't work, or they don't follow the facilitator's instructions.

SPEAKER_02 32:28

I just had one case, one workshop where the I mentioned it in the exploration interview. There just one guy, and they were kind of building a new version of an existing software, and he created the existing software. So this was his baby, and he was really fighting against. And then we came to a point where I said, We have now two options. We kind of uh end the workshop now, and you follow on with your discussions and see how far you can get with this, or we follow the script of the workshop as proposed, and see what actually will be the outcome at the end. And they actually decided to go for the second options. Oh, nice, but there was a point I had to be very clear because I see this this doesn't make any sense anymore, yeah, even from my point of view. And sometimes it's necessary to be very clear about the potential outcomes of a development within the workshop, you know what I mean.

SPEAKER_01 33:26

Especially if you might kill some darlings, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 33:29

Yes, yeah, that's hard for people, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:32

Absolutely. We get so attached, we fall in love with our ideas, get attached to what we build. Yeah, would this be surprising for you? This reaction from this participant.

SPEAKER_02 33:44

No, it's human, you know. I mean, it's it's really about as you said, it's the the attachment, and especially in this case, he was the only expert regarding this software, so he really carries a lot of knowledge, you know. This is the second aspect, and yeah, for some people it it's hard.

SPEAKER_01 34:08

Yeah. Could you have done anything beforehand to prepare him or to yeah, make the situation smoother?

SPEAKER_02 34:19

In this case, not because I had no access to the people up front, just to the CEO of the company who was actually um triggering the workshop. She was very open, she's very nice. So I didn't have the chance to get in touch with the workshop team up front. But in the workshop, then I tried to kind of uh moderate and facilitate this as good as possible, sometimes being very strict and sometimes but being also very friendly in the in the in the same way. Let's put it this way. What would you you can't control everything, you know?

SPEAKER_03 34:54

I'm yes, I'm also the beauty of it.

SPEAKER_02 34:57

I trust in the methodology, and when I say okay, I can't get further, then I have to make a decision. So I propose uh a CMR A or a B, and then the team has to decide.

SPEAKER_01 35:08

Totally, totally. I absolutely agree. And still I'm curious because I think this situation is so common that we end up with someone in a workshop who has a specific relationship to the topic we're discussing. And sometimes we do have the opportunity to talk to these people before or to find out. So if you could turn back the time and had the opportunity to meet this person, how would you prepare him or yourself to the situation?

SPEAKER_02 35:40

I would tell him um I I'm not uh deciding on the software, I'm just hearing to help you to get new ideas on a maybe new version. So it's your chance, it would be your chance to to show your ideas actually, because you are an expert, you have the deep knowledge, and it would be a pity if you wouldn't join. Yeah, so that's uh how how I would like to address him, you know.

SPEAKER_01 36:07

Yeah, I don't know if it would have worked or not, but and then he also has the opportunity to prepare and to critically rethink his product and to contribute with new ideas, so to be in the driving seat again instead of being the old version.

SPEAKER_02 36:27

Yeah, definitely, yes.

SPEAKER_01 36:29

Does this design thinking framework methodology, given that it's so scripted, does it give you allow you the freedom to play around with your own exercises?

SPEAKER_02 36:42

I sometimes do. And uh the workshop participants are not aware of it, but uh try different uh kind of variations of a set methodology and um see what's actually happening because I'm I'm still trusting there will be some outcome that in most of the cases will be better when it compared to a group discussion. So, anyhow, there will be some outcome, and then I yeah, see how it actually works and and um dig in more deeply and kind of try to refine or actually abandon it if it doesn't work in the way I would like to see it work.

SPEAKER_01 37:23

And um, before I ask you for your favorite exercise, you just said that there will be a better outcome compared to group discussion.

SPEAKER_00 37:33

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 37:33

I I totally agree. And still I'm curious, what's so wrong about group discussions?

SPEAKER_02 37:39

There's nothing wrong with group discussions, but when it's about creating ideas and brainstorming, actually, group discussions are the least effective methodology you can apply. Because for the first thing, people are just shouting out ideas, and it's actually very hard to keep track of all the ideas. At the same time, nothing is written down. Um, it's very hard to validate ideas that are not have some that are not concrete to put to put it that way. You know, that's why I always don't stop at the level of words, but just putting post-its and stickies to the wall. That's why I always do this paper prototyping. And it's not about always a user interface. Sometimes we have the goal to develop a business model or an architecture blueprint or a service blueprint. Yeah, there can also be a prototype for this, everything can be prototyped. So, prototyping is also kind of mindset in the way that you want things even more concrete. You're leaving actually the world of the words that's more ambiguous, and enter a word that's more concrete and unambiguous in the sense that an image is always easier to convey compared to a word. Yes. I always do do sorry, I just always do it uh exercises sometimes with stakeholders and managers. It's a two-minute design thinking exercise. I tell them we want to build a table, and we only know uh that it should stand on four legs, actually, and it should be around somewhere and it should be kind of 90 centimeters high. Please take two minutes and sketch two tables. And if you have four people in your room, you won't get eight totally different tables, and that's why we sketch. If we just put a sticky to the wall, 90 centimeters, four legs, it should be round. This is very unconcrete. This is actually hard to validate this idea, and it's very hard to judge and maybe even do an investment decision on this, you know. So I try always to get as concrete as possible. And that's why group discussion is definitely not the way to go for, you know, because this won't lead any results in on this quality and level of concreteness, you know.

SPEAKER_01 40:01

Yeah, or then the group in the in one case might believe that they actually all agree. But since it's not concrete, then they don't even realize to what extent they disagree or that they are not aligned. So in the way, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 40:19

There's a quote from Steve Jobson, I may like him or not, but he's totally right when you said you can't know it until you see it. And that's also how the human mind works, you know. If you talk about wishes and just everybody's fine and it looks so nice and exciting, and then when you really get concrete and make the prototype, and then ah, okay, but I thought it should more go in this way and that way, then really the heart actually hard work starts, you know.

SPEAKER_01 40:47

Yeah. True. I remember you also mentioned in our briefing conversation that with the prototype, it's then also easier to get the buy-in from the leadership because the team they really build something that is tangible that they can show and present to different internal stakeholders and thereby secure the buy-in.

SPEAKER_02 41:06

Yes, definitely.

SPEAKER_01 41:08

What is your favorite exercise to get the people comfortable with this prototyping? Because I think that many might feel reluctant to the fact of drawing or building something with their hand.

SPEAKER_02 41:23

Yeah, it's it's actually sketching. So I tell them, no, now we make these ideas concrete. We have a bunch of feature ideas, we know the use cases, now we are drawing a user interface or a business blueprint or whatever. Yeah. So what I usually do is I had a guy in a workshop, it was uh the biggest oil and gas company, it was a manager, a legal manager. I think I'm not creative, I cannot sketch. I said, no, everybody is creative by nature, and everybody's able to sketch. The only thing you need, if you're able to draw a line, a circle or a rectangle, you are able to sketch. You don't need more. What I usually do is I print out sketches from past workshops, put them on the table so that people actually see it, and they are all in different qualities, and they show different stages of granularity, and and they some use colors, some do not. And I just tell them this is good enough. It should be just good enough actually to make your idea concrete as possible and so to uh understandable to a certain point. Yeah, so just go ahead, have fun. Yeah, if you think the idea isn't worth put it away, start a new one. You have 40 minutes time, that's enough to come up. And actually, this guy turned out to be a creative machine, you know. He produced uh the biggest paper prototype uh within the team and used most of the colors. And this actually he had this aha moment when he realized that it's not about art or design, it's just about getting ideas concrete. That's why we sketch, you know. Yeah, that's why if it's about business modeling, I always uh have a kind of template I'm providing to them, and I'm showing them examples, and it's actually also you some need support, you know. That's why I provide these sketches from the past workshops. Yeah, show them the examples and tell them relax, it's just about having fun and make the ideas a little bit more concrete. And then usually the people relax and they see okay, they're not validated, they are not evaluated here within the workshop. Yeah, I think it's not about your it's it's an occasion, it's an opportunity for you actually. Yeah, and then usually people are very creative. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 43:45

How do you debrief on such a prototype session? So I guess there are several subgroups then who all created, or is it one prototype for the entire group?

SPEAKER_02 43:57

No, it's everybody's working on. His or her own prototype.

SPEAKER_03 44:02

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 44:03

So what the people then do is if the if the if I see there are more all of the group members are kind of done, I say, okay, let's stop for now. And then everybody's presenting his or her vision to the team. The team should listen, is allowed to ask questions, is not allowed to judge ideas in this stage. It's really about understanding what he or her is aiming at. What are his or her ideas? And putting them to the poster, telling to sharing the ideas with the team. And then everybody does it, and at the end, we have six or eight prototypes. Then the play money comes into play. So I said now you have a budget, go back to the values we want to provide, think about them and take them to the evaluation of the ideas, and then put the money where you on an idea where you might think of this is the most valuable one.

SPEAKER_01 45:01

Would you then ask them because valuable expected results, more innovative? I mean, there are many different layers according to which you can evaluate a prototype or an idea.

SPEAKER_02 45:17

Sure. Actually, it's the values we want to provide. And usually we're working here within an HL software setup. This means you always start not with the biggest version, biggest possible version of the product, you always start with the minimum viable product, how is it called? So here we have the clear focus on ideas that might work at the beginning, that are not going too far or too big in that sense. So this is also kind of helping them the people to understand what idea might work within this frame we actually created. Put your money over there because this idea can actually be the seed for another great idea. So it's okay to have the values in mind and the MVP features, but don't apply too strictly at all.

SPEAKER_01 46:32

So rather in this failing fast mindset, okay, let's try something maybe crazy, but it will lead us to something better.

SPEAKER_02 46:41

Yeah, maybe it's something we cannot build in the beginning, but maybe a year later or in the third release or whatever. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 46:48

So would it be your task to emphasize this, or would it rather be the team leader or the project sponsor?

SPEAKER_02 46:59

Sometimes the the team leader is doing them automatically, kind of, or they come up with uh usually I do it when it comes to putting the money where the mouth is. Yes. So that's I'm I'm encouraging to go through the the results before, not just focusing on the design at the end. So because because everything is built on top of each other, yeah, and it's starting with the values and all the other stuff. So I actually encourage them to go through all the outcomes you we created so far and then do your do your evaluation.

SPEAKER_01 47:30

Yeah, awesome. I have uh one final question. What would be your advice to someone who would like to start doing design thinking workshops in a maybe more conservative organizational setting? How would you approach that?

SPEAKER_02 47:51

Yeah, I would encourage the people to really understand what the people are aiming at, have a lot of talks with them before, do really well preparation. If you haven't done any design thinking workshops so far, at least make one rehearsal with a colleague or a kind of friendly team. Yeah, really do a full rehearsal of the workshop, and that's what actually helped me, what I did together with Sean, my colleague from Tieto. Um, we did a lot of rehearsals in the beginning when it comes to conduct design thinking workshops with top customers for the company. So be well prepared, try to understand the people, have a lot of talks with them, do a rehearsal.

SPEAKER_01 48:35

What are the key questions that you would ask them for you to prepare and get an understanding of the people who are joining?

SPEAKER_02 48:43

If they have the first meeting with them, really just listen. Try to understand what they're aiming at. Ask the question to boil it down to one concrete question for the workshop. So tell them the workshop if they come up with an uh I don't know, workshop goal strategy 2022, it might be too big. If it's just improving a navigation for a certain piece of software, it might be too too small. So maybe something in between. Yeah, yeah. So maybe a use case, uh the two or three top use cases for a new piece of software. Yeah, so finding the right scope is not easy, but first you have to listen to understand. And what is not just the goal for the workshop, what is their actually, what is their goal, what are their KPIs? Because usually the KPIs are always a kind of a driver for the behavior. Yeah, yeah. If they have to deliver the software by the end of the year, yeah, you know, they they might feel some pressure because it's already, I don't know, February or March, and they haven't not started yet. So this might be also a driving force for the workshop design, because then he really has to focus on an MVP and not on very fancy ideas, for example, to get it done until the end of the year.

SPEAKER_01 50:03

And then it helps you for your facilitation to be maybe more strict and more results-oriented.

SPEAKER_02 50:10

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 50:11

Thank you. If someone fell asleep after the first minute of our conversation and just woke up, what would you like this person to take away from our conversation?

SPEAKER_02 50:27

Uh find your own way of doing design thinking in the way that you trust your intuition when it comes to understanding people. Understanding people is very important. Understand the people you facilitate the workshop for. This is really important. Try to understand what they are aiming at, prepare the workshop, invest a lot in doing a very well-prepared workshop. Actually, have a strict frame for the workshop, but be flexible also in the way how it develops, how the how the people interact, how the people convey their way of thinking, and always do prototyping. For me, a design thinking workshop without prototyping is a waste of time. I'm very honest about this. Everything you have what you created so far, you have to boil it down into one concrete thing again. Then it's easier, actually, much easier for the people. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 51:27

Yeah. And it's funny why you explained that I and also how you explained how you prepare your design thinking workshops. It sounds as if your preparation of the workshop is a mini design thinking process where you empathize with the users who are the workshop participants, and where you end up with a prototype after rehearsing with your colleague.

SPEAKER_02 51:48

Yeah, that's true, actually. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 51:50

Interesting. Nice way to see your workshop preparation. Thank you very much for sharing. Is there anything else that you would like to share that we haven't touched upon?

SPEAKER_02 52:02

There's a lot of interesting stuff going on. Currently, nothing comes to my mind. I think I touched the most important aspect. Thanks for listening, actually.

SPEAKER_01 52:12

Yeah. Thank you for sharing. That was really, really interesting. I appreciate it. If someone would like to get in touch with you to follow up, to ask questions, to learn from you, how can they find you?

SPEAKER_02 52:26

The easiest way to go to LinkedIn and find me over there. Perfect.

SPEAKER_01 52:31

I will put it in the show notes.

SPEAKER_02 52:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 52:33

Great.

SPEAKER_02 52:33

Cool. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 52:34

Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 52:35

Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 52:36

I wish you a fruitful day and happy design thinking.

SPEAKER_02 52:42

You too. Enjoy your stay in Madrid. Thank you. I will.

SPEAKER_01 52:47

Bye-bye.

SPEAKER_02 52:48

Bye-bye. See you.

SPEAKER_00 52:49

Bye. See you then. Thank you for staying tuned and listening to the show. I appreciate your attention as I know how busy you are. If you enjoyed it, please subscribe and engage by sharing your comments and thoughts. And visit workshops.org to download the one-page summary. I'm looking forward to seeing you back at the next episode, and I wish you a fruitful day.