Successful Design Thinking workshop with IT management consultancy noventum

14 September 2018 | Münster

On Friday, 14^th September, a group of 25 managers from the IT management consultancy noventum came together to meet Neele Petzold, Alexander Schmidt and Patrick Schröder from the Science-to-Business team at Gut Havichhorst which is located close to Münster. The goal of the workshop was twofold. On the one hand, the Design Thinking sprint aimed at producing tangible results within a limited amount of time during the workshop. On the other hand, the workshop was designed to foster a creative atmosphere and to make the participants leave their comfort zones.

After shortly introducing themselves, Neele, Alexander and Patrick started the workshop by inviting the workshop participants to the Museum of Disruption. Here different exhibits could be found that illustrated markets or products which were disrupted in the past. For instance, a collection of CDs was shown next to a picture of Spotify or an analogue camera next to a smartphone. After the participants had the chance to go through the museum, Neele explained the characteristics and the process of a disruptive innovation by employing the example of AirBnB which disrupted the hotel industry.

In order to get the sprint started, Neele and Alexander quickly explained the different phases of a Design Thinking sprint. To allow the whole group an effective and productive way of working, three teams were built randomly which concentrated on three different topics in the following. Within the different phases of the sprint, each group was provided with a different method they were asked to use. The teams received a time slot of 20 Minutes for each of the phases.

The first phase was the World café which is also known as brainstorming. As the topics given were very broad, the teams had to narrow it down and to decide where they would like to place the focus for the upcoming phases. After finishing the brainstorming, the teams were asked to present one or two ideas in a 30 seconds pitch. By voting with the hand the whole group could decide which of the ideas were to be pursued further by each team.

The following working stages Problem definition ­and re-definition as well as Need finding aimed at understanding the underlying problem of the chosen topic and to explore and find the needs from the perspective of the customer. Building on the gained insights, the teams started the Ideation in which they worked on different ideas. After structuring and clustering all found ideas, the best solution was chosen. In the subsequent phase, Prototyping, this idea was then further developed by creating a prototype.

The final step of the Design Thinking sprint was to pitch what the teams elaborated over the course of the workshop. Thus, a representative or a group from each team had 90 seconds to advertise and promote their idea. After the pitch and by using sticky dots, the winner of the pitch was determined. Afterwards, a feedback session took place where the participants could express their "likes", "wishes" and "what if´s.