Everything you need to kickstart design research.
Research is the most crucial step in innovation, as it provides an understanding about users’ behaviour and actionable insights anchored in their behaviour, needs and dreams for the future.
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Unlike conventional research methodologies, design research amalgamate and curate methods and techniques from the toolboxes of ethnography, anthropology etc. to discover not just insights, but a whole new perspective and fresh ideas which you would never dare to think!
open-source archive of Innovation Methods
Using Design Thinking to Redefine Future Strategy for Cambridge
2-day experiential workshop formulating strategic roadmap for business future.
Crossed Design facilitated a Design Thinking workshop with Cambridge University Press & Assessment for navigating future of business in India. The two-day workshop included exercises, activities with a methodical approach for cross-functional collaboration of Cambridge top brass.
Strategic Roadmap by Future Thinking
Objective
The workshop aimed at re-aligning strategies in cooperation with members from various departments within organization. The engagement was designed to develop a comprehensive service roadmap with clear actionable, responsible personnel and KPI for evaluation.
Before the Workshop
Before inception of the activities & techniques to be used in the workshop, we started with interacting with top level stakeholders from Cambridge teams. This included Managers, team leads, project owners across departments.
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These initial interactions played a pivotal role in comprehending the organization's business objectives, pain points, market dynamics, and competition. Looking into the expectations and concerns of cross-functional decision-makers showed internal dynamics and dependencies within the organization. These interactions proved instrumental in narrowing down to shared vision helping us organize the workshop.
Tools & Techniques
Design thinking process starts with empathy, by understanding of the system from the diverse perspectives of various players. To facilitate empathy for participants, we developed user personas & scenario maps for internal & external stakeholders when they navigate their journey.
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These maps & matrices acted as templates, nudging participants to develop their ideas and provide a structure to them. Additionally, an idea prioritization grid was created to identify most impactful ideas to go ahead with!
User Personas to Allign with the Stakeholders
Participants worked together to create personas for various stakeholders such as end users, buyers, institutional players, and the sales team. By incorporating a diverse range of personas, a comprehensive understanding of the system was developed from the perspectives of both internal and external actors.
User Journey to Pin down Pain-points & Opportunities
Mapping down the steps for crucial scenarios in users journey, exploring pain-points & opportunities. Here, we delved into interactions at front stage, back stage & product support stage in the journey.
Ideation to Bring out the Big Ideas
Switching gears to ideation, the participants generated numerous ideas to address user needs. Providing various prompts like use of AI, gamification, Government model, automation etc. helped in stimulating unique & diverse ideas in a short span.
Idea Prioritization
for Future Strategy
Probably the most vital part of the workshop is deciding the most effective ideas to be executed. Here, we mapped the impact of executing big ideas against effort and feasibility, which ultimately guided us in formulating the future strategic direction for the organization.
369 plan for Actionables & KPIs
Collaboratively, decision-makers constructed a timeline focusing on most impactful ideas. To streamline the execution, deadlines were established at intervals of 15 days, 3 months, 6 months, 9 months & 12 months specifying tasks to be completed. Respective individuals & teams were assigned for the tasks with clear KPIs ensuring accountability.
Sharing the Thoughts
& Conclusion
As the final act, teams proceeded to present their ideas and findings to the entire group through presentations and skits.
Progress Assessment & Pivot
The subsequent steps includes developing a detailed service roadmap to be executed in next year. It is accompanied by periodic follow ups for reviewing the progress to keep things on track and to pivot the strategies if required.
Catering to a diverse market like India is no easy feat. However actors across the board uniting with Design Thinking can surely take on this challange!
