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Thank you for listening to this Ask Like a Designer episode of the Design Thinking 101 Podcast. In my coaching conversations, I help people take a more holistic view of life and work. We find experiments that define values, shape goals and establish habits. This episode is about running your own experiments using our system for high performance with living well at its core — Fluid Hive’s Good-Life Operating System.  In these short Ask Like a Designer episodes on the Design Thinking 101 podcast, you’ll find new ways to explore the show’s stories and ideas about design-driven innovation. I’ll share methods, templates, and ideas that have worked in my practice in teaching. This episode is based on this article: ALD 004 // Your Good-Life OS: Designing a System for Living Well and Peak Performance. Read the article and others like it on Fluid Hive’s Ask Like a Designer. What did you think of this episode? Please send your questions, suggestions, and guest ideas to Dawan and the Fluid Hive team. Cheers ~ Dawan Design Thinking 101 Podcast Host President, Fluid Hive   Show Highlights [00:51] You can use design thinking to help you create your system for living well. [01:03] Living well is the foundation of high performance. [01:52] What’s your purpose? [02:13] The three questions we all need to answer to create the Good-Life Operating System. [02:54] Efficiency procrastination. [03:22] Researching habit formation. [04:19] Incorporating the variables of time and change into goal-setting. [04:54] Binary measurements for goal outcomes tracking. [06:05] Secular Goals vs. Value Goals. [07:19] Using “I am someone who…” to establish value goals. [08:07] Three obstacles to the Good-Life OS. [09:45] The benefit of regular Life Scans. [10:40] How to set up your own Life Scan. [11:17] Bringing it all together to get your Good-Life OS up and running. [12:21] Free Ask Like a Designer Thinking Tool to help you create your GoodLife OS. [12:59] Design Thinking 101 Learning courses. [13:29] The Innovation SmartStart webinar.   Design Thinking 101 Learning — Courses and More Design Thinking 101 Learning helps people learn, lead and apply design-driven innovation. Each training course focuses on a different collection of actions and skills critical to using design thinking effectively and getting the results you seek. Please join me in the first course, Design Thinking 101 — Framing: Creating Better Solutions by Finding More Valuable Problems to Solve.  Each course is structured to help your innovation actions create what you need for the people you serve, your organization and yourself.   Other Design Thinking 101 Episodes You Might Like Design Thinking 101 Podcast Episode 61: Ask Like a Designer Episode 001 Design Thinking 101 Podcast Episode 63: Ask Like a Designer Episode 002 Design Thinking 101 Podcast Episode 65: Ask Like a Designer Episode 003   Other Resources Download the Design-Driven Innovation Project Launch Guide — Guide to launching innovation projects and avoiding common innovation traps Design-Driven Innovation. Innovation Smart Start Webinar — Take your innovation projects from frantic to focused! Fluid Hive: Learn — A growing collection of courses, webinars, and articles for people expanding their design thinking, service design, and human-centered design skills.  

Clive Grinyer is the Head of Service Design at the Royal College of Art in London. Clive's an acknowledged expert in service design, design thinking, and design and technology innovation, who has led award-winning design teams for companies around the globe. He started in design consultancy with IDEO in London and San Francisco before co-founding the design consultancy company Tangerine with Martin Derbyshire and future Apple design chief and RCA chancellor, Jony Ive. He went on to build and lead design teams for Orange, Samsung, and Cisco, and was Director of Service Design for Barclays. As Director of Design of the UK’s Design Council, he created the Design Demand program, taking design into over one thousand UK companies. As a consultant, he’s worked with the cabinet office policy lab and at Nesta. Clive speaks at national and international conferences, writes articles and blogs, and has published Smart Design, a book on design and technology.   Show Summary Clive discovered his interest in design at an early age, in part thanks to toys and dresses! His grandmother’s dress shop introduced him to the idea that there were actual people out there whose job was making decisions about what we would like and what would be trendy. That would lead him to art school. A conversation with a career advisor uncovered an affinity for product design, and that’s where Clive’s design path began: designing physical objects. He worked for several well-known design consultancies, including Moggridge Associates (founded by Bill Moggridge, who would go on to co-found IDEO), and then Clive chose to co-found a design consultancy himself before shifting gears away from consulting altogether and going in-house, taking a position with Samsung, where he helped open the company’s design office in Europe. After Samsung, Clive worked for a number of the world’s leading corporations, culminating in a position with Barclays bank, where he again shifted--this time from digital design to service design--setting up their service design team and working on customer experience. Clive recently left the corporate world behind, taking the Head of Service Design position at the RCA not long before the COVID-19 pandemic began. Today, we’ll talk about building service design teams, teaching service design and how the RCA service design department adapted its teaching and courses in response to the pandemic, and where Clive believes service design needs to take us in the future.   Listen in to learn more about: Clive’s path from product design to service design Building a service design team Service design at RCA The future of service design, post-pandemic Service design in Europe and the US How the impact of service design is often invisible Service design, design thinking, and innovation   Show Highlights [02:01] Clive talks about his design career path. [07:50] Moving from consulting to in-house. [09:54] Leaving the corporate world behind for the RCA. [10:41] Challenges Clive faced while building the service design team at Barclays. [13:02] Finding the right people for the team. [13:34] Design Council’s double diamond. [14:40] The Barclays team’s first project. [17:47] Culture change as a vital function of a service designer. [19:08] Taking people on a journey, and passing on the tools of design to others. [22:26] Teaching service design at the RCA in the midst of the pandemic. [23:02] Ramping up the use of digital tools and going online. [24:20] The success of RCA’s graduate virtual service design show. [25:54] Taking the lessons from the last year and using them going forward. [26:38] Clive talks about a successful project conducting user research online via TikTok. [27:30] Post-pandemic opportunities for service design. [27:40] Generation Regeneration. [27:56] “Never waste a crisis.” [30:23] How service design can help us make decisions to build the future we want. [31:51] Clive and Dawan talk about the state of service design in the U.S. [33:49] The focus of design thinking in the U.S. [34:04] The impact of service design in Europe. [35:23] Service design is fixing things. [36:42] The “invisible impact” of service design. [38:28] The role of service design and design thinking in innovation. [41:03] Clive offers advice to those wanting to try service design at their organization. [42:03] Thinking differently. [45:41] Clive talks about the two-year master’s at RCA. [48:16] More about RCA’s service design tutors. [51:41] The importance of storytelling to service design. [53:18] The big challenge Clive sees for service designers. [55:06] Where to find out more about Clive and his work.    Links Clive’s website Clive on LinkedIn Clive on Twitter Clive’s profile on the Royal College of Art website RCA Service Design Ageing Well: Designing a world accessible to all Creative Review’s Top 50 for 2018 Designing Our Futures Clive Grinyer on Service Design CLG Podcast: Public services are ahead of business when it comes to service design Unknown Origins podcast: Clive Grinyer on Service Design    Other Design Thinking 101 Episodes You Might Like Integrating Engineering, Design and Business with Tony Hu — DT101 E35 Teaching and Learning Service Design for Designers and Non-designers with Maurício Manhães — DT101 E34 Rethinking Service Design + Student Projects + Community Systems with Amy O’Keefe — DT101 E56 ________________ Thank you for listening to the show and looking at the show notes. Send your questions, suggestions, and guest ideas to Dawan and the Fluid Hive team. Cheers ~ Dawan Ready to learn new ways to think and solve like a designer today? Enroll in Framing: Creating Better Solutions by Finding More Valuable Problems to Solve — from Fluid Hive’s Design Thinking 101 Learning. Free Download — Design Driven Innovation: Avoid Innovation Traps with These 9 Steps Innovation Smart Start Webinar — Take your innovation projects from frantic to focused!

This episode is based on this article: ALD 003 // There Are No Problems Worth Solving – Only Questions Worth Asking. Read the article and others like it on Fluid Hive’s Ask Like a Designer.   This Ask Like a Designer episode is about a better way to see and choose problems to solve. It includes a simple framework for aligning your choices with the development and goals that matter most to you.   In these short Ask Like a Designer episodes on the Design Thinking 101 podcast, you’ll find new ways to explore the show’s stories and ideas about design-driven innovation. I’ll share methods, templates, and ideas that have worked in my practice in teaching.    What did you think of this episode? Please send your questions, suggestions and guest ideas to Dawan and the Fluid Hive team.   Cheers ~ Dawan Design Thinking 101 Podcast Host President, Fluid Hive   Show Highlights [00:52] A better approach to closing the gaps between the world we have and the world we want. [01:07] Questions worth asking. [01:21] The trouble with solving. [01:54] Responding instead of solving. [02:23] Difference between response and reaction. [02:44] Looking at problems and how questions can create the problem space. [03:37] Questions worth answering. [04:28] Wicked problems. [04:54] Questions worth answering by you. [05:11] Four considerations when deciding if a question is worth answering by you. [05:25] Learning. [05:39] Power-Ups. [05:58] Seedlings. [06:18] The Spend. [07:33] Free Ask Like a Designer Thinking Tool to help you choose your next question worth answering. [08:21] Design Thinking 101 Learning courses. [08:47] The Innovation SmartStart webinar.   Design Thinking 101 Learning — Courses and More Design Thinking 101 Learning helps people learn, lead and apply design-driven innovation. Each training course focuses on a different collection of actions and skills critical to using design thinking effectively and getting the results you seek.   Please join me in the first course, Design Thinking 101 — Framing: Creating Better Solutions by Finding More Valuable Problems to Solve.    Each course is structured to help your innovation actions create what you need for the people you serve, your organization and yourself.   Fluid Hive’s Designing Facilitation Course launches soon. Get notified when enrollment opens. Good events are essential when creating effective solutions while thinking and acting like a designer. Designing Facilitation shows you how to create effective, engaging events that are easy to lead. You’ll learn how to apply the Event Design Questions, use over 20 event creation tools, how to avoid common facilitation traps, and make the most of every second people spend at your events. Notify me when Designing Facilitation launches!     Other Design Thinking 101 Episodes You Might Like Ask Like a Designer 001 — DT101 E61 Design, and One Question to Rule Them All // ALD 002 — DT101 E63   Other Resources Download the Design-Driven Innovation Project Launch Guide — Guide to launching innovation projects and avoiding common innovation traps Design-Driven Innovation. Innovation Smart Start Webinar — Take your innovation projects from frantic to focused! Fluid Hive: Learn — A growing collection of courses, webinars, and articles for people expanding their design thinking, service design, and human-centered design skills.

In this episode, Indi Young joins me to deliver a micro-course on listening sessions. I’m experimenting with new ways to learn on the podcast.  Listeners will learn from Indi as we talk about listening sessions, what they are, how to do them, why they matter, and how to get the most out of them.  Let me know what you think of the micro-course format, and if I should do more of them.  Cheers, Dawan, Your Design Thinking 101 Podcast Host    Listen to learn more about: What listening sessions are and why they matter How to structure a good listening session Getting the most out of listening sessions The two questions that are always asked during a listening session Do’s and Don’ts of listening sessions   Our Guest’s Bio Indi Young is a researcher who coaches, writes, and teaches about inclusive product strategy. Her work is rooted in the problem space where the focus is on people, not users. Indi pioneered opportunity, maps, mental model diagrams, and thinking styles. She was one of the founders of Adaptive Path, the pioneering user experience agency. Her way of approaching the problem allows teams to truly pay attention to people without letting cognitive bias and assumptions creep in. She has written two books, Practical Empathy, and Mental Models, and is working on a third, Assumptions Aside, which will cover thinking styles. Indi builds knowledge and community via a series of online advanced courses about design research and the importance of pushing the boundaries of your perspective.    Show Highlights [02:54] Listening is different from interviewing. [03:22] Listening is qualitative research. [04:35] Indi describes the knowledge creation / data collection template she uses. [05:05] Problem spaces and solution spaces. [06:57] In the solution space, much of the research is either generative or evaluative. [08:07] In the problem space, the research is neither generative nor evaluative. [08:54] The problem space is interested in the person and how they achieve their purpose. [09:19] A listening session asks the person what they were thinking as they were achieving their purpose. [11:25] Organizations are often only concerned with solution spaces; problem spaces tend to get ignored. [12:03] Why study problem spaces? [12:56] One solution does not fit all – there is no such thing as an “average user.” [13:50] Thinking styles vs. personas, and designing for archetypes. [15:03] An example from work Indi did for the University of Buffalo. [15:33] The benefits of using thinking styles over personas. [16:25] The bias problem in research. [17:10] Listening sessions must be framed by a purpose, and must have depth. [17:39] Surface vs. depth. [18:59] Depth is how we develop cognitive empathy with people. [19:34] The good stuff in a listening session is the inner thinking, the emotional reactions. [21:13] Indi describes the Mental Model Diagram. [23:27] Listening sessions start with a germinal question. [24:28] Listening sessions are audio-only. [26:49] The challenges that can come up in listening sessions. [28:47] The structure of a listening session. [30:27] Indi shares snippets of some listening sessions as examples of how to begin a listening session. [34:37] How Indi works with the results of a listening session. [35:14] Techniques used during listening sessions. [36:13] Listening session examples demonstrating techniques Listeners can use to build trust and rapport with the Speaker. [38:05] The importance of silence. [41:29] Listening session examples demonstrating how to encourage Speakers to open up and share their inner thoughts and emotions. [45:38] Indi talks about micro-reflections and shares some examples from listening sessions. [49:57] Why Indi likes the word “because.” [50:43] Listening session examples where the Listeners used time and place to help the Speakers dig deeper. [Note from Indi at 51:44] - “I forgot to explain that the grocery store example was because the Speaker got flustered and forgot her restaurant experiences. The Listener took her back to the grocery store she had mentioned so that the Speaker could be in familiar territory and relax. After that she remembered some more of her restaurant experiences.” [55:34] Indi talks about ways to simply encourage Speakers to continue talking. [57:12] Things not to do during listening sessions. [57:18] Avoid asking leading questions. [58:37] Avoid asking surface level questions. [1:01:08] Avoid conjecture. [1:01:51] Examples of conjecture from Indi’s listening sessions. [1:08:32] Avoiding complex reflection. [1:10:33] Indi talks about normal things that can occur during listening sessions. [1:12:13] Discovering your own verbal habits when reviewing your listening sessions. [1:13:35] Winding down listening sessions, and some examples of that from Indi. [1:13:53] The one closing question you should always ask. [1:16:40] Indi offers advice to those wanting to improve their listening skills and perhaps try using listening sessions. [1:19:44] Indi talks about some of the courses she offers.    Links Here are the diagrams and transcripts we discuss in the episode. Indi on Twitter Indi on LinkedIn Indi on Medium Indi’s website and course listings 99% Invisible podcast episode: On Average Book Recommendation: Listening Well: The Art of Empathic Understanding, by William Miller Be sure to check out the links from Indi’s other DT 101 Podcast episode, linked below!   Other Design Thinking 101 Episodes You Might Like Problem Spaces, Understanding How People Think, and Practical Empathy with Indi Young — DT101 E6

I hope you enjoyed this episode.   In these short Ask Like a Designer episodes on the Design Thinking 101 podcast, you’ll find new ways to explore the show’s stories and ideas about design-driven innovation. I'll share methods, templates, and ideas that have worked in my practice in teaching.   This episode is about a question behind almost everything people do as they create growth and opportunity by seeing and solving like a designer.   This episode is based on this article: ALD 002 // Design, and One Question to Rule Them All. Read the article and others like it on Fluid Hive’s Ask Like a Designer.   What did you think of this episode? Please send your questions, suggestions, and guest ideas to Dawan and the Fluid Hive team.   Cheers ~ DawanDesign Thinking 101 Podcast HostPresident, Fluid Hive Show Highlights [00:50] The One Question to Rule Them All. [01:19] Solving the wrong problem. [01:41] What happens when you solve the wrong problem. [01:49] Why solving the right problem is actually impossible. [02:31] Lessons from a yacht crash. [03:10] What problem am I trying to solve is never “one and done.” [04:23] How do you find the answer to “what problem am I trying to solve?”  [04:34] How-Might-We questions [04:45] Free Ask Like a Designer tool to help you choose your next problem to solve. [05:08] To design is to ask questions. [05:27] Design Thinking 101 Learning courses. [05:52] The Innovation Smart Start webinar. Design Thinking 101 Learning — Courses and More Design Thinking 101 Learning helps people start seeing and solving like a designer. Each training course focuses on a different collection of actions and skills critical to using design thinking effectively and getting the results you seek. Please join me in the first course, Design Thinking 101 — Framing: Creating Better Solutions by Finding More Valuable Problems to Solve.  Each course is structured to help your innovation actions create what you need for the people you serve, your organization and yourself. Grab your spot and start seeing and solving like a designer today.   Design Thinking 101 Episodes You Might Like Ask Like a Designer 001 — DT101 E61 A Short Introduction to Design Thinking with Dawan Stanford — DT101 E32  Design Research + Tools for Thinking + Using Research Well with Terri Herbert — DT101 E55   Other Resources Download the Design-Driven Innovation Project Launch Guide — Guide to launching innovation projects and avoiding common innovation traps Design-Driven Innovation. Innovation Smart Start Webinar — Take your innovation projects from frantic to focused! Fluid Hive: Learn — A growing collection of courses, webinars, and articles for people expanding their design thinking, service design, and human-centered design skills.

Ryann Hoffman is a system designer and design leader specializing in design and complex systems and working with organizations to develop capacity in design thinking and innovation operations.   Show Summary Ryann’s path into design came from an early love of music, playing classical piano, and music composition. She did freelance design projects for teachers while in high school. By the time she went to college, she had strong design and communication skills, and had learned the power of storytelling. Ryann started out with plans for a degree in English, but switched to Sociology and fell in love with it from her very first introductory course. After undergrad, she spent several years working in various fields, including nonprofits and a music tech startup, where she brought her digital communications and design skills to bear on projects like promotional videos, visual design for reports and collaterals, and systems design for music distribution.   While in grad school for Public Administration, she took a class called “Coping with Wicked Problems,” where she was introduced to design thinking. After graduation, she moved to Washington, D.C. became a member of Design Thinking DC, and started what would become her career in systems design, leading to her civic design work today with cities across America and international organizations like The World Bank and the Government of Madagascar.   Listen in to learn about:       Design Thinking D.C.       System design at the municipal and federal level       Advice for launching a new design team       The surprising way “tedium” can trip up a design project       Innovation Transformation       Helping design teams that are working with emotional, difficult topics       Power and identity in design       Post-traumatic growth and helping people find a path to it in positive ways       The importance of designers learning facilitation   Our Guest’s Bio Ryann Hoffman is a systems designer most in flow working in complex problem spaces. She's built and led design work across industries and at organizations including The World Bank and The Government of Madagascar, Capital One, Johns Hopkins Sibley Memorial Hospital, and ConsenSys. Through leading and practicing design, Ryann found purpose in developing teams. She watched the most well-intentioned, competent teams struggle to create impact because they lacked the support and curriculum to imbue design beyond densely packed workshops or sprints, and into their daily workflows, collaborations, and mindsets. As a Design Coach and Instructor, Ryann has worked with Harvard University and the Bloomberg Foundation, AmeriCorps, ConsenSys, Sunrun, and other leading institutions leveraging design to make their respective dents in the world's challenges. Her circuitous route to this calling includes her Masters in Public Administration, a stint in the music industry, and an early foundation in digital media production and visual design. When she's not working, Ryann loves learning about the brain and aspires to be more mindful.   Show Highlights [02:05] How Ryann’s love of music led her to develop digital design and communications skills. [03:57] Making the switch from English literature to Sociology. [05:14] Ryann’s post-undergrad work. [08:05] The graduate course on dealing with wicked problems that introduced Ryann to design thinking. [11:38] Moving to Washington, D.C. after graduation. [13:22] Ryann and Dawan talk about Design Thinking D.C. [17:44] Ryann talks about her work as a civic designer and facilitator. [19:48] What Ryann loves about working at the city level of design. [23:17] How working with cities helps designers build a varied and robust skillset. [25:30] How Ryann helps design teams learn and apply design thinking tools and methods in their work. [28:18] Ryann offers advice for getting a new design team off to a good start. [29:40] The area that is often overlooked by new design teams and organizations looking to innovate. [32:24] Innovation transformation and the 3 things critical for a design team to learn if they want to succeed. [34:23] On the need for organizations to not be afraid to try different methods and processes to see what works best. [36:06] One of the most difficult challenges for leaders when they start working with design thinking. [37:24] How power and identity can create challenges in design thinking work. [38:57] Ryann talks about early struggles with perfectionism. [39:36] Divergent and convergent thinking, and the importance of working with and supporting team members. [42:13] Why trust is so important for teams and the importance of creative conflict. [43:29] Ryann’s recent focus on stress on systems and the psychological field of post-traumatic growth. [46:16] Reframing how we think about the things that cause us harm and stress. [49:23] Why facilitation is an important skill for designers and anyone working in design thinking. [56:18] Lessons Ryann learned about remote work. [57:07] Remote work can make it easier to integrate design into an organization’s workflows. [58:14] Finding and learning the tools to help create an engaging online experience. [1:00:06] The difference between remote and in-person interactions. [1:03:47] Seeing areas of weakness as opportunities. [1:05:43] Where to find out more about Ryann and her work.   Links  Ryann Hoffman on LinkedIn Staircase Strategy Book Recommendation: Antifragile: Things That Gain From Disorder, by Nassim Nicholas Taleb Book Recommendation: Stronger By Stress: Adapt to Beneficial Stressors to Improve Your Health and Strengthen the Body, by Siim Land Psychology Today, “Why Virtual Communication Can Leave You Worn Out” Brené Brown, The power of vulnerability    Other Design Thinking 101 Episodes You Might Like Design Thinking for the Public Sector + Building and Training Design Thinking Teams with Stephanie Wade — DT101 E14 Teaching Yourself Design Thinking + Innovating in Government with Amy J. Wilson — DT101 E19 Adding System Awareness to System Design to Your Innovation Stack with Julie Guinn — DT101 E43 More Design Thinking 101 Episodes   ________________  Thank you for listening to the show and looking at the show notes. Send your questions, suggestions, and guest ideas to Dawan and the Fluid Hive team. Cheers ~ Dawan Download the Design-Driven Innovation Project Launch Guide — Guide to launching innovation projects and avoiding common innovation traps Design-Driven Innovation. Innovation Smart Start Webinar — Take your innovation projects from frantic to focused! Fluid Hive: Learn — A growing collection of courses, webinars, and articles for people expanding their design thinking, service design, and human-centered design skills.  

Thank you for listening to this Ask Like a Designer episode of the Design Thinking 101 Podcast. In these short Ask Like a Designer episodes on the Design Thinking 101 podcast, you’ll find new ways to explore the show’s stories and ideas about design-driven innovation. I'll share methods, templates, and ideas that have worked in my practice in teaching.  This episode is about six people: six designers whose different roles and favorite questions drive how I serve clients, teach, and develop as a designer. This episode is based on this article: ALD 001 // Ask Like a Designer. Read the article and others like it on Fluid Hive’s Ask Like a Designer. What did you think of this episode? Please send your questions, suggestions, and guest ideas to Dawan and the Fluid Hive team. Cheers ~ DawanDesign Thinking 101 Podcast HostPresident, Fluid Hive Show Highlights [00:32] What is the Ask Like a Designer series?[01:08] The Six Designers and their purpose.[01:44] Why “ask like a designer?”[02:43] Designer 1: Builder[03:06] Designer 2: Scout[03:39] Designer 3: Tinker[04:19] Designer 4: Facilitator[04:52] Designer 5: Traveler[05:14] Designer 6: Pro[06:01] How to work with the Six Designers[06:05] Free Ask Like a Designer thinking tool for download at Fluid Hive to help you work with the six designers.    Design Thinking 101 Learning — Courses and More Design Thinking 101 Learning helps people learn, lead and apply design-driven innovation. Each training course focuses on a different collection of actions and skills critical to using design thinking effectively and getting the results you seek. Please join me in the first course, Design Thinking 101 — Framing: Creating Better Solutions by Finding More Valuable Problems to Solve.  Each course is structured to help your innovation actions create what you need for the people you serve, your organization and yourself. Grab your spot in the course early. Use this code FRAMING20 to get 20% off the course if you register by January 22, 2021.   Design Thinking 101 Episodes You Might Like Humble Design Leadership + Design Agency and Experience Design Evolution with Aleksandra Melnikova — DT101 E33    A Short Introduction to Design Thinking with Dawan Stanford — DT101 E32  Learning and Leading Design for Healthcare + Innovation Teams with Paolo Korre — DT101 E20    Other Resources Download the Design-Driven Innovation Project Launch Guide — Guide to launching innovation projects and avoiding common innovation traps Design-Driven Innovation. Innovation Smart Start Webinar — Take your innovation projects from frantic to focused! Fluid Hive: Learn — A growing collection of courses, webinars, and articles for people expanding their design thinking, service design, and human-centered design skills.

Denise Ho and Andrew Baker are our guests today. Denise is a design researcher practicing in the design space since the early 2000s and the Director of Design at Hope Lab. Andrew Baker is living and working at the intersection of technology and experience design. He’s the Vice President of Product at Grit Digital Health and teaches Experience Design at the University of Colorado. Denise and Andrew collaborated on a way to combat loneliness in college students. We talk about designing for mental health, Nod, an app that is helping young people avoid negative health outcomes associated with loneliness, and how college students were involved in creating Nod.   Show Summary   Denise and Andrew had very different entry points into design. Denise’s journey began with a love for people and cultures. She started her undergrad as an anthropology student, but she wanted to not just study culture, but to shape it. That led her into design. She studied product design at the Illinois Institute of Technology, and landed an internship at IDEO, where she ended up staying for eight years while also teaching design at the California College of Arts. Denise opened her own design practice and started doing design research into younger generations — not just designing products for them, but also working to understand their way of seeing and experiencing the world. Now, she works at Hope Lab, where the focus is on creating digital technologies that help young people live happier, healthier lives.   Andrew’s interests were influenced at an early age by his father, a graphic designer, and his mother, a civic leader focused on social impact. He studied business and English literature at the University of Colorado, but also minored in technology, arts and media, where he studied software development and honed his self-taught graphic design skills. An internship at a Denver agency allowed him to continue developing that skill set, but also gave him the opportunity to dig into user experience and into understanding human behavior and using those insights to guide designing product solutions. He moved into a dual role with Cactus and Grit Digital Health, leading both companies’ creative technology practices before moving into a full-time position at Grit Digital Health, where the focus is on creating digital health solutions for college students designed to help them improve their mental health and wellness.   Denise and Andrew talk about designing for mental health and their collaboration to create Nod, an app for college students. Nod is designed to help students make social connections and relationships in an effort to address the loneliness many students end up feeling when they arrive on campus and begin their higher education journey.   Listen in to learn more about: Designing digital health products for younger generations The Nod app How Nod was designed and developed Co-creating with college students Hope Lab’s work and projects Grit Digital Health’s wellbeing tool and other projects  Our Guests’ Bios   Denise Ho Denise Ho brings more than 15 years of creative leadership experience as a design thinker, strategist, and qualitative design research with expertise in healthcare, transformative technologies, and industrial design. She spent 8 years at IDEO, and is currently Director of Design at Hopelab. She leads a diverse team of design researchers, industrial designers, and creative strategists to create technologies that are engaging, sustainable, and scaled to impact as many lives as possible. Denise enjoys gardening and spending time with her twin daughters, husband, and puppy.   Andrew Baker In his role at Grit Digital Health, Andrew inspires and guides the design of user-centered solutions across technology mediums and industry verticals. With a background in experience design and software development, Andrew and his team strive to develop wellbeing products that are rooted in research, behavior design, and business strategy. Outside of his role at Grit, Andrew is an adjunct professor at the University of Colorado, where he teaches user experience design in an MA program for Strategic Communication Design.     Show Highlights   [01:30] How Denise found her way to a career in digital design. [05:08] Andrew’s journey into digital design. [10:18] Denise gives an introduction to Nod. [11:12] Andrew follows up with his “elevator pitch” for Nod. [12:28] The question that drove Nod’s naissance at Hope Lab in 2017. [13:25] The connection between loneliness and college students’ mental health. [14:48] Denise talks about the early research and discovery stage of Nod. [15:45] Nod’s unique problem space. [16:58] Collaborating with college students using an early paper prototype of the app. [18:19] Nod’s next steps forward in development. [18:52] Andrew talks about reverse engineering health outcomes. [20:01] The three categories of psychological health outcomes Nod targets. [21:36] Successfully changing behavior requires small concrete steps. [24:15] College students continued to play an important role in the development of Nod. [25:30] The challenges of working on a solution for a very personal and private issue. [27:16] Co-creating with students on Nod has been an incredible experience. [27:56] Nod’s pilot phase with the University of Oregon. [28:20] Service design and delivery is one of the biggest challenges for digital products. [30:06] Nod’s pilot phase at the University of Colorado Denver focused on service design. [31:31] COVID-19’s impact on the development of Nod. [33:20] Hope Lab’s tri-discipline approach to collaboration and co-creation. [35:19] Denise talks more about the randomized control trial at the University of Oregon and how it proved Nod was working. [36:31] How people reacted when they heard about Nod’s development. [37:48] Andrew offers insights into the rise and future of digital-only health and wellbeing design. [39:15] Why Nod is such a special project and product. [41:31] Where you can find Nod. [42:22] Partnership with Snapchat to release Nod in 2021. [43:31] How universities can participate in Nod’s pilot program. [44:29] Denise talks about another project Hope Lab is working on, focused on identity affirmation of LGBTQ+ people. [47:25] Andrew talks about Grit Digital Health’s digital personalized wellbeing tool. [48:21] Grit Digital Health is hosting a panel at an upcoming Innovation Learning Network conference.     Links   Denise on LinkedIn Andrew on LinkedIn Andrew on Instagram Andrew on Grit Digital Health Nod Nod’s product overview Press release on efficacy data for Nod Hope Lab Hope Lab Milk Hope Lab’s LGBTQ+ Youth Mental Health and Resilience Project Grit Digital Health YOU at College University of Colorado Boulder, Master of Arts in Strategic Communication Design Elon By Design Fast Company’s "Innovation by Design" award (Nod was honored in 2 categories) Journal of Medical Internet Research Mental Health: Smartphone App to Address Loneliness Among College Students: Pilot Randomized Controlled Trial       Other Design Thinking 101 Episodes You Might Like   Mapping and Service Design + Implementation + Accessibility with Linn Vizard — DT101 E17   Launching and Leading a University-wide Design Thinking Initiative with Danielle Lake — DT101 E31   Designing Health Systems + Creating Effective Design Workshops with Sean Molloy — DT101 E44   ________________   Thank you for listening to the show and looking at the show notes. Send your questions, suggestions, and guest ideas to Dawan and the Fluid Hive team. Cheers ~ Dawan   Free Download — Design Driven Innovation: Avoid Innovation Traps with These 9 Steps   Innovation Smart Start Webinar — Take your innovation projects from frantic to focused!

Douglas Ferguson is the founder of Voltage Control, a workshop agency on a mission to rid the world of horrible meetings. We talk about teams, design sprints, prototyping, and creating meetings that matter.   Show Summary   As a coder during the 90s tech bubble, Douglas discovered that he loved working as part cross-functional teams often found in startup companies, and wearing different hats as needed during a project. When the Agile Manifesto came out in early 2001, Douglas realized that a lot of its principles were things he and his teams had already been doing. He began combining Agile and Lean methodologies to find ways teams can work together better.   Douglas’ company, Voltage Control, focuses on helping teams learn how to better collaborate. During our conversation, we talk about the hallmarks of a well-functioning team, Douglas’ work with organizations using design sprints and prototyping, and how Douglas’ new book, Magical Meetings, is helping us all be able to have better, more meaningful and productive meetings.    Listen in to learn more about: The traits of a well-functioning team How prototyping can help an organization The ins and outs of design sprints The two questions to ask when designing the test for a prototype Douglas’ new book, Magical Meetings How to have better meetings, no matter what industry you’re in Adapting to the new virtual meeting space   Our Guest’s Bio   Douglas is an entrepreneur and human-centered technologist with over 20 years of experience. He is president of Voltage Control, an Austin-based workshop agency that specializes in Design Sprints and innovation workshops. Prior to Voltage Control, Douglas held CTO positions at numerous Austin startups, where he led product and engineering teams using agile, lean, and human-centered design principles. While CTO at Twyla, Douglas worked directly with Google Ventures running Design Sprints and now brings this experience and process to companies everywhere.     Show Highlights   [01:36] Douglas talks about how he got into design and his focus on teams and teamwork. [03:57] Launching Voltage Control to help teams work better together. [04:30] How a well-functioning team evolves. [05:05] The importance of trust between team members. [05:36] Douglas connects the Gallup’s Q12 survey to team trust. [08:06] How Douglas introduces teams to prototyping. [08:51] Creating a vision document of how the team might use prototyping. [09:23] Why Douglas needs to understand the shared values of a team. [11:01] Two tactics Douglas uses to help teams come to a shared understanding. [14:30] Douglas defines prototyping. [14:43] Douglas shares one of his favorite examples of prototyping: the five pound weight. [17:16] Prototypes help teams separate the problem space from the solution space. [18:50] How Douglas facilitates team prototyping. [19:41] The two components of a design sprint. [20:10] The importance of the question “What is the test we need to run?” when designing a prototype. [20:30] The Riskiest Assumption Test (RAT). [22:00] The two questions Douglas asks after deciding on the prototype test. [22:57] Setting expectations for a design sprint and avoiding the “design sprint slump.” [23:44] A design sprint is only the beginning of the work. [24:30] Why it’s important for an organization’s leadership to understand what design sprints can and can’t do. [25:00] Prototyping is intended to give insights and understanding of the problem space to provide direction for the work to come. [26:55] Leadership must understand there is more work to do after the design sprint. [28:49] Design sprints as design research. [29:46] Douglas talks about “branding” the design sprint. [31:11] How Douglas is gathering facilitation techniques and tools from different industries and applying them to help us all improve our meetings. [33:22] Douglas’ new book, Magical Meetings. [34:03] How meeting participants can help the meeting facilitator. [35:10] Magical Meetings offers action steps and principles anyone can use to improve their meetings. [36:11] Douglas offers his thoughts on remote work and virtual meetings, and COVID-19 is changin his work. [37:53] Advice for those holding virtual workshops and meetings. [38:45] Intentionally designing virtual experiences.   [40:35] Two virtual tools Douglas recommends for those creating online experiences. [42:21] Where to find out more about Douglas and his work.   Links Douglas on LinkedIn Douglas on The Future Shapers Douglas' posts on Medium What is design thinking? Bringing Design Thinking into Technology Voltage Control Beyond the Prototype Inside Innovation - Inside Outside podcast with Douglas Beyond the Prototype - Techblog Writer UK podcast episode with Douglas Gallup’s Q12 Survey Loom screencasting tool Session Lab workshop planning tool     Other Design Thinking 101 Episodes You Might Like     Stakeholder-Centered Design, Design Thinking in Large Organizations, and Critique for Design Teams with Jean-Louis Racine — DT01 E3   Teaching Yourself Design Thinking + Innovating in Government with Amy J. Wilson — DT101 E19   Designing Your Team + Teams in Design Education + Coaching Design Teams with Mary Sherwin and David Sherwin — DT101 E49   ________________   Thank you for listening to the show and looking at the show notes. Send your questions, suggestions, and guest ideas to Dawan and the Fluid Hive team. Cheers ~ Dawan   Fluid Hive’s Ask Like a Designer — Monthly articles with design ideas, methods, frameworks, templates, and a question-fueled approach to design-driven innovation. Discover new ways to learn, lead and apply design-driven innovation.   Free Download — Design Driven Innovation: Avoid Innovation Traps with These 9 Steps   Innovation Smart Start Webinar — Take your innovation projects from frantic to focused!

Yianna Vovides is the Director of Learning Design and Research at the Center for New Designs and Learning and Scholarship (CNDLS) at Georgetown University. She’s also a professor for the Master of Arts in Learning, Design, and Technology (LDT) program at Georgetown, and the Curriculum Director for LDT. In her role at CNDLS, she oversees the digital learning efforts, including online programs. We discuss learning, learning design, and designing online learning during the pandemic and beyond.     Show Summary   A passion for discovering how we communicate launched Yianna’s journey into instructional and curriculum design. In her Master’s in development support communication, she studied how we work and communicate in international settings, especially in terms of communication pathways up and down an organization’s hierarchy. During her master’s work, she took an Introduction to instructional design course, and realized that it was the bridge she had been looking for to create those communication pathways.   In this episode, we talk about how people learn and how Yianna teaches learning design to her students. We learn more about the LDT program at Georgetown. Yianna discusses the learning journey, creating “beautiful” learning experiences, and how the current health crisis has accelerated the rise of e-learning and the tools and technologies that make e-learning possible.     Listen in to learn more about: Learning design as compared to instructional design Georgetown University’s Learning, Design, and Technology program The complexity behind how people learn The difference between an instructional designer and a learning designer “What is learning” as an impossible question to answer How the COVID-19 health crisis is re-shaping how we teach and learn E-learning spaces and how they are being used now   Our Guest’s Bio   Dr. Yianna Vovides’ work intersects three areas — education, technology, and development. Over the last two decades, she has focused her practice and academic efforts in addressing how people learn within networked learning environments. She has worked on projects that emphasize individual and group learning, institutional programs that enable systemic changes, and research that examines how new technologies support teaching and learning.   Professor Vovides currently serves as Director of Learning Design and Research at the Center for New Designs in Learning and Scholarship (CNDLS), Professor for the Master of Arts in Learning, Design, and Technology (LDT) program at Georgetown University, and Curriculum Director for LDT. In her role at CNDLS, she oversees the digital learning efforts including online programs. She has over 15 years of experience in higher education and has been instrumental in establishing programmatic efforts for university-wide services in online learning. As a professor, she serves as faculty in LDT and teaches courses both for the program core and learning design track core — Methods of Learning and Design and Theories, Process Models, and Strategies.     Show Highlights   [01:37] Yianna talks about what learning design and instructional design are in terms of higher education and her work. [02:52] How Yianna found her way into instructional design. [04:56] Pairing instructional design with computer-based instruction. [06:55] Yianna’s coursework is designed to help students find their own best path into learning. [07:40] Yianna’s dissertation on cognitive flexibility and the need for openness and vulnerability. [09:23] Wanting students to focus on learning, not process. [09:43] The LDT program starts by asking students “What is learning?” [11:08] By studying the outliers and designing for them, Yianna can create a better design for all. [12:41] Why it can be challenging for a newcomer getting into learning design. [13:41] The lack of learner agency in current educational environments, and how the LDT program is different. [14:12] The collaborative nature of the LDT program for students. [16:36] More about the LDT program and how it’s structured. [17:12] Why Yianna prefers the term “learning design” over “instructional design.” [18:57] The LDT program’s four core components. [19:40] How the LDT design studio incorporates all four of the core components. [22:20] How constraints and boundaries can fuel creativity and innovation. [23:12] The importance of the question, “What is the problem you’re trying to solve?” and of encouraging students to keep asking questions. [26:00] Why collaboration is an integral part of being a learning designer. [27:20] The key difference between a learning designer and an instructional designer. [28:50] Yianna believes that more research needs to be done on the driving factors and motivators behind collaboration. [30:15] Yianna talks about the Medical Education Partnership Initiative. [30:47] How e-learning is opening the doors of learning to more communities all across the world. [34:39] COVID-19 and emergency e-learning. [35:35] Moving from emergency e-learning spaces into designed e-learning spaces. [37:35] How a particular tool or technology can spark learning design ideas. [38:04] Yianna encourages teachers and students to play in their virtual classrooms to become comfortable with them. [39:01] Deciding between synchronous and asynchronous learning experiences in the virtual classroom. [41:28] Yianna recommends resources for those wanting to learn more about how people learn and learning design.   Links Yianna on LinkedIn Yianna’s profile page at Georgetown University Yianna’s webpage at Georgetown University Book: Optimizing Instructional Design Methods in Higher Education (Advances in Higher Education and Professional Development) Book: Learning from Hypermedia: The Role of Metacognitive Skills MOOC: Massive Open Online Courses IDEXX Learning Center Coursera   Other Design Thinking 101 Episodes You Might Like   Designing for the Greater Good, Strategy + Design Thinking, and Measuring Design Thinking with Jeanne Liedtka — DT101 E1   How to Learn Design Thinking + Design Thinking Pedagogy with Julie Schell — DT101 E15   Learning Design + Designing for How People Learn with Julie Dirksen — DT101 E42   ________________   Thank you for listening to the show and looking at the show notes. Send your questions, suggestions, and guest ideas to Dawan and the Fluid Hive team. Cheers ~ Dawan   Fluid Hive’s Ask Like a Designer — Monthly articles with design ideas, methods, frameworks, templates, and a question-fueled approach to design-driven innovation. Discover new ways to learn, lead and apply design-driven innovation.   Free Download — Design Driven Innovation: Avoid Innovation Traps with These 9 Steps   Innovation Smart Start Webinar — Take your innovation projects from frantic to focused!  

Dr. Lesley-Ann Noel is the Associate Director for Design Thinking for Social Impact and a professor of practice at Tulane University, and an Afro-Caribbean designer who focuses on critical emancipatory design thinking. We talk about power issues and design, participatory design, working with community partners, teaching design, thinking in ways that help students reflect on difference, and the Designer's Critical Alphabet.     Show Summary   Lesley’s passion for design started in middle school, and by the time she graduated from high school, she was looking for a place to continue her design studies. She ended up in Brazil, where she spent a year studying graphic design and five years in industrial design before returning to Trinidad, where she worked as a design consultant and taught at the University of the West Indies.   After coming to the U.S. to get her Ph.D. at North Carolina State University, she spent a year teaching at Stanford’s d.School before moving on to her current position at Tulane University.   Lesley talks about the importance of positionality and identity in her work, and how her classes and coursework have changed in response to the events of 2020, including the current COVID-19 health crisis. We learn how and why Lesley created the Designer’s Critical Alphabet, and what she hopes the cards will do for people who use them.   Listen in to learn more about: How power and identity influence design Making design more inclusive with communities and stakeholders — designing with, not designing for How design thinking can be used to give marginalized populations a voice and a seat at the table The changes and adaptations Lesley is making to her classes in response to COVID-19 The Designer’s Critical Alphabet   Our Guest’s Bio   Dr. Lesley-Ann Noel Is Afro-Trinidadian design educator, based in New Orleans. She practices design through emancipatory, critical and anti-hegemonic lenses, focusing on equity, social justice and the experiences of people who are often excluded from design research. She also attempts to promote greater critical awareness among designers and design students by introducing critical theory concepts and vocabulary into the design studio e.g. through The Designer’s Critical Alphabet. Her research also highlights the work of designers outside of Europe and North America as an act of decolonizing design. Her identity is shaped by her ethnic background as an Afro-Trinidadian; her experience as a daughter, sister and mother; and her lived experiences in Trinidad and Tobago, Brazil, Tanzania, Uganda and the USA. Show Highlights   [01:28] Lesley shares her path into design. [02:05] Her time in Brazil. [02:35] Returning to Trinidad and working as a design consultant and university professor. [03:27] Coming to the U.S. for her Ph.D. [04:40] How her life experiences have strongly influenced her work. [05:11] Her interest in indigenous cultures and looking at different points of view. [05:57] Her Design Research Society group’s focus on gathering design stories from Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean. [06:55] Lesley talks about how she teaches design thinking by starting with “who we are” and talking about positionality and identity. [08:01] How the focus on identity and positionality changes the way Lesley and her students approach design. [09:33] The importance of getting the stakeholders involved in the process. [10:43] The way Lesley is using design thinking to amplify and reflect the voices of those often left unheard. [11:33] Shifting the power from the university to the community, and letting community partners take the lead. [12:40] Lesley talks more about the experiences and challenges of exploring identity and power in the classroom. [15:21] Ways Lesley is working to ensure her students are aware of the agency and power of the communities they are working with. [16:08] Ensuring the learning and information is flowing in both directions. [17:05] How 2020’s current events are affecting her teaching and classes. [19:08] The rewards of watching students grow their confidence and skills as designers. [20:25] Lesley describes her classes and the academic culture shock some students have when they first get started. [22:57] How Lesley uses unique creative challenges to help students tap into their ability to reflect, think, and design. [23:31] The “design a game” challenge. [24:27] The “create a recipe” challenge. [25:11] Lesley has students redesign a design thinking format and design their own framework. [27:02] What Lesley is doing to adapt her classes and coursework to the new realities of the COVID-19 crisis. [29:43] Remote work pushes the need to create activities for relationship building and allocate enough time for them. [32:16] Being intentional about relationship building. [33:47] Designer’s Critical Alphabet card deck overview. [34:23] The Designer’s Critical Alphabet’s purpose is to help designers look at a project with different lenses and perspectives. [34:43] Lesley discusses a couple of the cards in depth. [36:33] The Designer’s Critical Alphabet is a way for designers to learn and develop critical theory and vocabulary. [37:19] Lesley’s students use the cards to learn new vocabulary, theories, and ideas. [39:00] The Designer’s Critical Alphabets humble beginnings as a small side project. [40:10] How Lesley’s viral LinkedIn post in June 2020 brought the Designer’s Critical Alphabet deck to a larger audience. [42:23] Lesley’s one fear about the cards. [44:26] The two things Lesley hopes the cards will encourage people to do. [46:04] How to learn more about Lesley and her work.   Links Dr. Noel on TwitterDr. Noel on LinkedInDr. Noel’s websiteDr. Noel on Tulane University’s websiteA Designer’s Critical Alphabet Cards“Teaching and Learning Design Thinking through a Critical Lens at a Primary School in Rural Trinidad and Tobago”Dr. Noel’s work with emancipatory research and design thinkingCAE research conference call with Dr. Noel as she presents her research/processes in the field of critical design thinking with an emphasis on emancipatory process.   Other Design Thinking 101 Episodes You Might Like   How to Learn Design Thinking + Design Thinking Pedagogy with Julie Schell — DT101 E15   Design Thinking + Learning Science with Adam Royalty — DT101 E18   Rethinking Service Design + Student Projects + Community Systems with Amy O’Keefe — DT101 E56   ________________   Thank you for listening to the show and looking at the show notes. Send your questions, suggestions, and guest ideas to Dawan and the Fluid Hive team. Cheers ~ Dawan   Free Download — Design Driven Innovation: Avoid Innovation Traps with These 9 Steps   Innovation Smart Start Webinar — Take your innovation projects from frantic to focused!

Amy O'Keefe is the Studio Director of Northwestern university’s Master of Science and Engineering Design Innovation program, where she leads the human-centered service design studio. We talk about how the pandemic and the expanding awareness of systemic racism might change services, design, project partnerships, service design studio courses, and communities of practice in design education. Show Host: Dawan Stanford   Show Summary Amy was always interested in experience design, but in the early 90s, there wasn’t a specific discipline teaching it, so Amy had to find her own path by way of studying English literature and architecture during her college years. Her senior thesis — an examination of how people experience memorial architecture, with a focus on the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. — was her first real foray into human-centered design and experience design. Her original intention to continue studying architecture in graduate school changed after taking a job at the Art Institute of Chicago, where she had the opportunity to dig into digital technology. Instead, she pivoted into a fifteen-year career designing digital products and services. Eventually, Amy returned to university for a graduate degree in product design. She began teaching service design while finishing up her graduate work. Our conversation takes a look at the world today through a service design lens and talks about how service design is changing — and how it needs to continue to change — in response to what’s happening around us right now.   Listen in to learn more about: Systemic racism and its effects on service design Ways to ensure service design is focused on equity for marginalized populations Some of the projects Amy and her students have worked on in healthcare and social impact spaces Northwestern’s Student Health Leaders project The value of design communities finding ways to connect and converse with one another Fluid Hive’s Adapt, Respond, and Evolve experience Service Ecosystems and Chicago’s Center on Halsted as a great example   Our Guest’s Bio   Amy O’Keefe is the Studio Director of Northwestern University's Master of Science in Engineering Design Innovation (EDI) program, where she leads the Human-Centered Service Design Studio.   Amy frequently partners with physicians and healthcare organizations to bring a human-centered approach to addressing complex medical issues. Amy has consulted on service, experience, and integrated multi-channel initiatives for Fortune 50 retail and global Am Law 100 clients. Her professional background includes more than a decade leading multi-disciplinary service, product design, and development at a Chicago-based tech startup acquired by Thomson Reuters. Amy received her MS in Product Design and Development Management from Northwestern. As an undergraduate, Amy embraced the Liberal Arts, majoring in English at Davidson College and studying Architecture in Florence, Italy.   A sampling of Amy’s recent studio collaborations includes: a partnership with Procter & Gamble that led to the 2016 launch of the integrated laundry service, Tide Spin; engagement with Northwestern Medicine and Lurie Children’s Hospital resulting in lead findings presented at the 2016 American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology (ACAAI) Annual Scientific Meeting; and engagement with Penn Medicine’s Anesthesiology and Critical Care team informing the best practices for patient awareness and management of postoperative delirium discussed at the 2016 American Society of Anesthesiologists’ Brain Health Summit.   She is a founding member of the Integrated Design Innovation consortium (IDI) and is working with colleagues from peer programs at University of Pennsylvania, MIT, Carnegie-Mellon, Harvard and several other schools to establish, evolve, and expand the category of Integrated Design Innovation programs in engineering education.     Show Highlights   [01:36] Amy’s “crooked” path to service design. [03:35] Amy defines intentional design. [03:51] Her job at the Art Institute of Chicago was her introduction to the idea of digital design and creating digital experiences. [04:49] Pursuing a graduate degree in product design and teaching service design. [07:22] Looking at the world and current events through a service design lens. [08:15] Amy talks about how most of our daily and activity journey maps broke this year. [09:10] The responsibility of service designers in our current environment. [11:05] How systemic racism and other world events has affected how service design works and the way Amy teaches service design. [12:26] Amy’s work on a new framework to encourage a better understanding of all stakeholders and complex adaptive systems in a problem space. [13:28] The need for service designers to understand the various privileges, power, and identities of potential stakeholders. [14:39] How many service design tools are problematically designed for an idealized world that doesn’t reflect reality, and how Amy helps students to dig for more accurate insights. [15:22] Service design, acknowledging risk, and running design prototypes to test the impact on marginalized populations. [16:45] Putting ethics first as a service designer. [17:25] Amy talks about how she chooses projects for her classes. [18:35] Amy offers examples of some of her students’ projects. [19:30] The Student Health Leaders project at Northwestern. [23:58] Solving versus responding when it comes to problem spaces. [26:46] Ways in which the various design practice communities are starting to come together to share ideas and have conversations about the work. [32:06] Amy asks Dawan to talk about Fluid Hive’s Adapt, Respond, and Evolve experience. [34:03] The value of bringing leaders from many different schools together to talk about the current challenges and to share lessons learned. [35:38] The definition of a service ecosystem. [36:30] Amy talks about Chicago’s Center on Halsted’s LGBTQ service ecosystem. [38:42] Amy recommends looking up the Fogo Island Inn and Zita Cobbs’ Service Design Network conference presentation. [40:47] Books and other resources Amy recommends for learning more about service design. [42:27] Where to find out more about Amy and her work.     Links   Amy at Northwestern University Amy on LinkedIn Engineering Design Innovation at Northwestern University Zita Cobbs and the Crisis of Belonging Book Recommendation: Service Design: From Insight to Implementation, by Andy Polaine, Lavrans Løvlie, and Ben Reason Book Recommendation: Palaces for the People: How Social Infrastructure Can Help Fight Inequality, Polarization, and the Decline of Civic Life, by Eric Klinenberg Book Recommendation: Small Is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered, by E. F. Schumacher Book Recommendation: The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America, by Richard Rothstein     Other Design Thinking 101 Episodes You Might Like   Mapping and Service Design + Implementation + Accessibility with Linn Vizard — DT101 E17   Designing Culture at Work + Social Innovation + Necessary Disquiet with Laurie Currie — DT101 E29   Adding System Awareness to System Design to Your Innovation Stack with Julie Guinn — DT101 E43   ________________   Thank you for listening to the show and looking at the show notes. Send your questions, suggestions, and guest ideas to Dawan and the Fluid Hive team. Cheers ~ Dawan   Free Download — Design Driven Innovation: Avoid Innovation Traps with These 9 Steps   Innovation Smart Start Webinar — Take your innovation projects from frantic to focused!

Terri Herbert is a design researcher and experienced research manager at Asana. She's fascinated by the complexity of the world of work and interested in researching and modeling complex systems involving people and technology. We talk about doing good design research, ways to ensure design research outputs are used effectively, and how a design researcher supports a team throughout the design process. Show Host: Dawan Stanford  Show Summary Terri’s journey into design research began in the business world of marketing and communications strategy, where she often worked with survey results and collected data. It was there she first came into contact with the concept of user experience and began to use some design thinking ideas in the iterative process of finding solutions. This led her into UX design and she went back to university for a Master’s degree in human-computer interaction. During this time, she discovered her love of research and modeling systems, which has been a part of her work ever since. At Asana, Terri’s focus is on understanding how people work together as a team, and on providing ways for teams to work better together. As part of this, she studies team dynamics and team behavior, and looks at individual team member’s skills and abilities. She uses what she learns to motivate team behaviors that foster and maintain a high-functioning work environment. We’ll hear more about design research and how Terri uses it to discover insights about how we work, and how she and her team strive to make their research accessible and easy to understand for those who need its insights, and the importance of seeing research itself as dynamic and never-ending. Listen in to learn more about: What design research is How team dynamics affects a team’s ability to perform and succeed Tools Terri uses to help people connect with and understand her research Ways design and design research are changing as a result of the current health crisis The importance of revisiting and refreshing design research as conditions evolve and change Our Guest’s Bio Terri is a design researcher and systems thinker fascinated by the complexity of the world of work. At Asana, a leading work management platform for teams, she heads up research focused on helping teams adopt better work practices. Her background in group and system dynamics, collaboration, and interaction design enables her to apply theory for impact in the real world. Terri holds an MSc in Human-Computer Interaction and has worked with organizations across e-commerce, culture and tourism, transportation services, agriculture, and more. Show Highlights [01:07] Terri talks about how she got into design research as a career. [02:57] A high-level look at the work Terri does at Asana. [04:40] How Terri structures her research when she’s studying team dynamics. [05:20] Secondary research sources that are part of Terri’s work. [06:01] Understanding a team’s dynamics is the key to improving how a team can work together better. [07:10] Ways Terri and her team ensure the outputs of their research are understood and used effectively by stakeholders. [08:05] Question mapping as a way to find the key questions and concerns the stakeholders have about the problem space. [10:09] Terri talks more about how design research gets applied in real contexts. [10:15] How Terri uses the discovery debrief to provide a team with tools for thinking and action as they move forward in the problem space. [10:43] Helping the team narrow the scope and bring the problem space into focus. [12:27] The benefits of role-blending in work environments when it comes to working as a team in the design problem space. [12:56] How Terri works through situations where she meets resistance to her findings and insights. [13:09] Using the opportunity tree tool to ensure the team’s work is actually going to address the identified problem. [14:48] Methods and tools Terri uses to help teams understand and connect with the research. [15:25] The value in revisiting earlier research on a regular basis to spot trends and long-term insights. [16:35] Research is not a static, permanent object; it is dynamic, always needing refreshing in response to change. [18:16] How Terri’s research team has been impacted during the COVID-19 health crisis. [20:00] The virtual tools and frameworks Terri’s using in her work now. [20:56] The opportunities and insights occurring in design research as a result of the health crisis. [23:52] Terri talks about wanting easier ways to help people get past their biases to allow them to go deeper into their own motivations and behaviors. [26:01] Resources Terri recommends for those interested in design research and design thinking. [29:29] How to find out more about Terri and her work.     Links   Her Twitter Her LinkedIn Terri on Medium Asana Getting Emotional: Our first steps with affective interactionBook Recommendation: The Social Life of Information, by John Seely Brown, Paul Duguid, and David WeinbergerBook Recommendation: The Service Innovation Handbook: Action-oriented Creative Thinking Toolkit for Service Organizations, by Lucy KimbellBook Recommendation: Thinking in Systems: A Primer, by Donella H. Meadows and Diana Wright Book Recommendation: The Power Paradox: How We Gain and Lose Influence, by Dacher Keltner Book Recommendation: Collaborating with the Enemy: How to Work with People You Don’t Agree with or Like or Trust, by Adam Kahane Book Recommendation: Turning People into Teams: Rituals and Routines That Redesign How We Work, by Mary and David Sherwin     Other Design Thinking 101 Episodes You Might Like   Problem Spaces, Understanding How People Think, and Practical Empathy with Indi Young — DT101 E6   Design Thinking + Learning Science with Adam Royalty — DT101 E18   Designing Your Team + Teams in Design Education + Coaching Design Teams with Mary Sherwin and David Sherwin — DT101 E49    ________________   Thank you for listening to the show and looking at the show notes. Send your questions, suggestions, and guest ideas to Dawan and the Fluid Hive team. Cheers ~ Dawan   Free Download — Design Driven Innovation: Avoid Innovation Traps with These 9 Steps   Innovation Smart Start Webinar — Take your innovation projects from frantic to focused!

Steve Wendel is the author of Designing for Behavior Change, Founder of the Action Design Network, and head of Behavioral Science at Morningstar. We talk about behavioral problem solving, his new book, ethics and behavior design, and his toolkit for anyone who wants to apply behavioral science now. Show Host: Dawan Stanford Show Summary Stephen began working with behavioral science during his years at HelloWallet. He was seeking to create products that were more attuned to the mindset of, and challenges experienced by, its customers. Stephen believes that behavioral science needs to be used not just to better understand our limitations and challenges, but also to help us discover and build the tools and solutions we need to overcome those limitations. One of Stephen’s goals has been to simplify aspects of behavioral science so that more people can use it in their work. His new book, Designing for Behavior Change, and companion workbook offers readers tools and processes that are accessible, practical, and easy to use. Stephen also offers his thoughts and advice on how behavioral science can help us rethink how we live, work, and succeed in the current COVID-19 health crisis environment, and how this time is one of tremendous opportunity when it comes to forming new life habits, not just on an individual scale, but on a societal one as well.   Listen in to learn more about: How behavioral science is used in the creation of products and services Ethical questions and challenges that arise in the behavioral science and behavior design fields The synergy between behavioral science and design The new edition of Stephen’s book, Designing for Behavior Change Stephen’s new tool, the Decide Framework Action versus outcome and defining the problem space   Our Guest’s Bio   Dr. Wendel is a behavioral scientist who studies financial behavior and how digital products can help individuals manage their money more effectively. He serves as Head of Behavioral Science at Morningstar, where he leads a team of behavioral scientists and practitioners to conduct original research on saving and investment behavior. Stephen has authored three books on applied behavioral science (Designing for Behavior Change, Improving Employee Benefits, and Spiritual Design) and he founded the non-profit Action Design Network: educating the public on how to apply behavioral research to product development with monthly events in fifteen cities. He has two wonderful kids, who don’t care about behavioral science at all.   Show Highlights   [02:27] Stephen’s introduction to behavioral science and behavior design. [03:35] How Stephen helps others understand behavioral design and how to apply it. [04:42] Stephen’s book is a synthesis of what’s being done and the tools being used across the behavioral science and design communities. [05:47] Stephen discusses his writing process for Designing for Behavior Change. [06:17] A new section of the book offers real-world examples of behavioral science teams and work. [06:50] The book offers a guide for those wanting to enter the field. [06:56] Stephen talks about expanding the book’s ethics section. [07:49] Stephen built the Decide Framework for the book, synthesizing best practices from behavioral science teams around the world. [08:36] The way behavioral science ethics have evolved, and how Stephen approaches the ethical challenges inherent in the work. [09:56] A few real-world examples of abuses of behavioral science and behavior design. [10:50] Behavioral science can be manipulative. [12:27] Using behavioral science to better ourselves and to set the ethical tone in our work. [14:01] Stephen discusses purposefully writing about the ethical challenges in order to give them more visibility in the behavioral science field. [15:16] How Milton Glaser’s Road to Hell is applicable to behavioral science. [16:40] More about the Decide Framework and how to use it. [20:13] The importance of clearly defining the problem before beginning to look for solutions. [21:20] The difference between focusing on the action versus the outcome. [22:41] The need to explore all of the potential implications and consequences of what it is you want to accomplish. [24:55] How to use the companion workbook/toolkit for Designing for Behavior Change. [27:01] Stephen’s advice to higher education educators wanting to use this toolkit in the current health crisis. [30:02] Stephen talks about how the Decide Framework can help those who work in the fields of healthcare and public health. [32:15] Where to find out more about Stephen’s work. [33:33] Resources Stephen recommends for those wanting to learn more about behavioral science. [35:29] How thoughtful design and behavioral science complement one another.     Links   Behavioral Technology – get your copy of the workbook (it’s free!) His Twitter His LinkedIn Designing for Behavior Change: Applying Psychology and Behavioral Economics, by Stephen Wendel Action Design Network Think Better with Steve Wendel Turning Intention to Action  Milton Glaser Milton Glaser’s Road to Hell in 12 Steps Behavioral Economics Behavioral Design Hub Book Recommendation: Thinking, Fast and Slow, by Daniel Kahneman Books Recommendation: Good Habits, Bad Habits: The Science of Making Positive Changes That Stick, by Wendy Wood Book Recommendation: More Than Good Intentions: Improving the Ways the World's Poor Borrow, Save, Farm, Learn, and Stay Healthy, by Dean Karlan and Jacob Appel Book Recommendation: The Last Mile: Creating Social and Economic Value from Behavioral Insights, by Dilip Soman Book Recommendation: Seductive Interaction Design: Creating Playful, Fun, and Effective User Experiences by Stephen P. Anderson     Other Design Thinking 101 Episodes You Might Like   Design for Good + Gut Checks + Seeing Power with George Aye — DT101 E50   Behavioral Design X Service Design with Anne van Lieren — DT101 E40   Behavioral Science + Behavior Change Design + Social Impact with Dustin DiTommaso — DT101 E28   ________________   Thank you for listening to the show and looking at the show notes. Send your questions, suggestions, and guest ideas to Dawan and the Fluid Hive team. Cheers ~ Dawan   Free Download — Design Driven Innovation: Avoid Innovation Traps with These 9 Steps   Innovation Smart Start Webinar — Take your innovation projects from frantic to focused!

Amy Heymans is Mad*Pow’s Chief Experience Officer and one its foundersof. We talk about how the practice of design is evolving, the emerging role of behavior design, purpose-driven design, and making sure the problems designers are asked to solve connect to business outcomes. Show Host: Dawan Stanford Show Summary A love of art led Amy into a career as a designer. She started in web design during the dot-com bubble where she became passionate about user research, usability, and user experience. After the bubble burst, she began to freelance, working in partnership with a former colleague. One project led to another, and the two continued to work together until, eventually, they founded Mad*Pow, fueled by Amy’s vision of design being used to improve the human condition. Their passion for creating positive change transformed them into healthcare innovation pioneers. Since its inception, Mad*Pow has been at the forefront of helping businesses across multiple industries create human-centered and purpose-driven solutions using design thinking, strategic design, and behavioral change design. Amy offers listeners her insight into the way design is currently evolving, what the future of design will look like, and how behavior change design is an integral part of that evolution. Listen in to learn more about: The evolution of design thinking and purpose-driven design Innovation in healthcare How designers are shaping business model design The business environment necessary for long-term innovation success Behavior change design — what it is, and how it’s changing design Our Guest’s Bio Amy believes that design can help improve the human condition. It was with that mission and vision that she founded Mad*Pow in 2000. Amy plays an essential role in Mad*Pow’s visualization of a changed healthcare system in the United States. Her work with companies like Aetna, CVS, McKesson, and Fidelity has helped them improve the experiences their patients and customers have with them, leverage design to drive change, and facilitate human-centric innovation. As the chief instigator behind Mad*Pow’sHealthcare Experience Design Conference—now in its fifth year and expanded and rebranded as HxRefactored—Amy has successfully connected and networked disparate parts of a challenging and siloed system. As a speaker, Amy shares her vision and methodology at influential events such as Design Management Institute, UXPA, IA Summit, Partners Center for Connected Health Symposium, Stanford MedicineX, Health 2.0, and HIMSS. With her partners Will Powley and Bradley Honeyman, Amy’s grown Mad*Pow’s presence, client base, and revenue, leading to Mad*Pow’s 2009 recognition as one of Inc. 500’s fastest growing privately held companies. Mass High Tech, which named her one of its 2009 Women to Watch, has recognized Amy’s passion, energy, and commitment, and she’s been acknowledged as one of Boston’s “40 Under 40” by the Boston Business Journal for 2014. She supports the vision and mission of An Orphan’s Dream, a nonprofit organization offering an oasis for AIDS-orphaned children in Gachoka, Kenya. Show Highlights [02:02] Amy’s love of art led her to a career in design. [03:19] Freelancing and co-founding Mad*Pow. [04:30] How design work has changed and evolved over the years. [04:55] Big brands can be thanked for putting design front and center. [06:04] Behavior change design is becoming more prominent in design now. [06:30] Purpose-driven design: finding the balance between what a business wants to achieve and what their customers or clients want to achieve. [07:16] The ways Amy approaches the topic of purpose-driven design with potential clients. [08:12] Banks are now recognizing the need for purpose-driven design in their industry. [09:53] The pre-pandemic state of health systems and behavioral design. [10:24] Health systems had begun moving towards value-based care. [11:40] There is no “silver bullet” tech innovation that will fix our healthcare systems. [12:55] Amy talks about the gaps between the wants and goals of health insurance companies, healthcare systems, and their patients. [13:20] Amy sees collaboration between groups of companies as the next frontier in healthcare innovation. [14:32] Focus of design has shifted to working directly with a business to tailor solutions. [15:13] How design is helping to innovate business models and strategies. [15:49] Business design is a blend of design thinking and business strategy. [17:24] The environment that’s needed in an organization for a project to succeed and thrive long-term. [19:48] Amy’s advice to business leaders considering working with a design firm. [20:10] The importance of understanding the problem space before jumping to a solution. [21:53] Why Amy believes the future of design is behavior change design. [23:23] How behavioral science and behavioral design is changing the field of design. [24:20] Designing today means using both creative right-brain and analytical left-brain. [26:56] The state of healthcare design during today’s COVID-19 crisis. [27:50] How digital health and home healthcare are evolving. [29:00] COVID-19 has shone a light on healthcare inequity and the social determinants of health. [30:26] Amy talks about her interest in the ethos-logos-pathos concept. [31:03] Amy recommends designers study philosophy, communication and speech-writing. [33:17] Information about Mad*Pow’s two conferences.     Links Amy on MadPow Amy on LinkedIn Amy on Twitter Amy’s page on MassArt Transforming our Empathy into A Future of Connectedness Designing an Eco-system of Care, from Stanford MedicineX 2013 Our Calling: Improve Health, from HXRefactored 2015 Design for Change: Empathy as our Guide The Case for Purpose-Driven Design TEDx Talk by Amy Design for Change: Empathy and Purpose, HXR 2016 Purpose Driven Design Can Change The World Designing for Systemic Change Fireside Chat Design Museum interview with Amy Edison Profile of Amy (video) The Three Pillars of Persuasion: Ethos, Logos, Pathos   Book Recommendation: Conscious Capitalism: Liberating the Heroic Spirit of Business, by John Mackey and Rajendra Sisodia       Other Design Thinking 101 Episodes You Might Like   Designing for Healthcare vs Sick Care + The Emergency Design Collective — DT101 E52   Designing Health Systems + Creating Effective Design Workshops with Sean Molloy — DT101 E44   Nursing + Service Design + Healthcare Innovation with Brittany Merkle — DT101 E38   ________________   Thank you for listening to the show and looking at the show notes. Send your questions, suggestions, and guest ideas to Dawan and the Fluid Hive team. Cheers ~ Dawan   Free Download — Design Driven Innovation: Avoid Innovation Traps with These 9 Steps   Innovation Smart Start Webinar — Take your innovation projects from frantic to focused!

Nick Dawson is the co-organizer of the Emergency Design Collective. In today’s episode, we talk about healthcare innovation labs, how to think about opportunities in healthcare, healthcare versus sick care, and launching the EDC to support the COVID-19 response. Show Host: Dawan Stanford Show Summary Nick Dawson grew up with a father who worked in healthcare and hospitals. As he entered college, he was convinced that he absolutely didn’t want to work in the same field. But the technology used in the local hospital intrigued and interested him enough to accept an internship in the IT department there. While immersed in how hospitals work, Nick discovered his interest in complex systems and their challenges. His internship turned into a lifelong career that led him into design and innovation for healthcare. While working as a healthcare performance improvement consultant for a large healthcare conglomerate, Nick needed to travel frequently by air. During his business travel, he witnessed a failing airline’s poor treatment of its employees; this was the nascence of his interest in the idea of re-designing healthcare’s patient and staff experiences. He realized that experience is something people and organizations must always create with intention and thought, and something that must be centered on those who are living and working in the experience. Experience design, healthcare and the ability to wrestle with complexity drives his work. Examples include designing the Johns Hopkins Sibley Innovation Hub, and his recent co-founding of the Emergency Design Collective, which focuses on re-thinking how we approach healthcare, helping businesses and organizations design their work spaces to support the health and wellbeing of their employees, and on creating a “public health design” core curriculum. Listen in to learn more about: The challenges of designing for innovation in hospital environments Designing the Johns Hopkins Sibley Innovation Hub The unique collaborative aspects of clinical hospital teams Creating a flexible work environment and power dynamic in teams The “product” of healthcare How everything in our life is connected to, and has an influence on, our health The social determinants of health The Emergency Design Collective and its work Ways to rethink how we work and function in order to design for good health Our Guest’s Bio Nick Dawson has been at the forefront of bringing design innovation to healthcare. He started and led the design innovation program at Johns Hopkins before joining Kaiser Permanente to lead innovation nationally. Nick chaired the Medicine X program in the Stanford school of Medicine until 2019 and worked with the Obama White House to bring patient-centered design to policy making and healthcare priorities. In April 2020, Nick left KP to co-found the Emergency Design Collective — a group of doctors, designers and public health experts using design to respond to urgent public health crises. Show Highlights [03:00] Nick’s start in healthcare and design. [04:19] Nick discovers his interest in complex systems problems. [04:28] How a hospital is like a miniature city. [05:23] Nick’s witnessing of an airline’s financial failure leads to a revelation about experience. [09:00] Learning from and listening to patients about what they need and want from their healthcare. [10:57] Why it can be challenging to innovate in healthcare. [11:29] Why healthcare is a risk-averse industry. [12:05] Nick’s focus on re-centering the work from the hospital to the communities, patients, and staff it serves. [12:51] Advice for overcoming people’s resistance to change. [13:31] The dilemma of how to help people embrace change and innovation instead of resisting it. [15:00] How hospital staff reacted to the launching of the Johns Hopkins Sibley Innovation Hub. [17:15] Nick talks about building the Sibley Innovation Hub team and working to create a welcoming space. [18:27] The unique characteristics of teams and teamwork in the clinical hospital environment versus the management side of healthcare. [19:39] How Nick disseminated power among his team members. [21:59] Nick’s thoughts on the “product” of healthcare. [22:50] The concept of a social needs emergency room existing upstream of clinical emergency rooms. [23:05] The interconnectedness of every part of our life with our health. [23:20] The social determinants of health. [24:18] What it means to design “upstream” of healthcare. [27:23] Some opportunities for people who want to act and serve not just in response to the current COVID-19 crisis, but also in the future as systems begin to change. [28:07] The Emergency Design Collective and the “new normal.” [28:27] Nick’s thought on education and how it might change. [29:15] What might happen if every corporation started to think of itself as an H corp and prioritizing health? [29:30] How the current global pandemic is potentially re-shaping the way we think about health. [31:15] Ways the EDC supports purposeful business and space design with a focus on good health and wellbeing. [33:40] Resources Nick recommends on design, innovation, and healthcare. Links Nick on LinkedIn Nick on Twitter Emergency Design Collective Personal Website Innovation as a requirement for success in healthcare An Everyone Included Design Story TEDMED Interview with Nick from 2014 Ward Infinity Book Recommendation: The Experience Economy, by B. Joseph Pine and James H. Gilmore Book Recommendation: The Cluetrain Manifesto, by Rick Levine, Christopher Locke, Doc Searls, David Weinberger, and Jake McKee Book Recommendation: Org Design for Design Orgs, by Peter Merholz and Kristin Skinner Book Recommendation: 101 Design Methods: A Structured Approach for Driving Innovation in Your Organization, by Vijay Kumar Other Design Thinking 101 Episodes You Might Like Adding System Awareness to System Design to Your Innovation Stack with Julie Guinn — DT101 E43 Designing Health Systems + Creating Effective Design Workshops with Sean Molloy — DT101 E44 A Designer’s Journey into Designing for Health and Healthcare with Lorna Ross — DT101 E45 ________________ Thank you for listening to the show and looking at the show notes. Send your questions, suggestions, and guest ideas to Dawan and the Fluid Hive team. Cheers ~ Dawan Free Download — Design Driven Innovation: Avoid Innovation Traps with These 9 Steps Innovation Smart Start Webinar — Take your innovation projects from frantic to focused!

Today’s guest is Holly O'Driscoll, the founder and CEO of Ampersand Innovation, a boutique consultancy focusing on bringing more human-centered design, innovation, strategy, and leadership development to the world. During the conversation, you'll learn about intersections between innovation and leadership, designing and facilitating innovation teams, and insights into shaping organizational innovation. Host:  Dawan Stanford. Show Summary Holly believes her journey into design began when she was kicked out of kindergarten after only two weeks (only to be promoted to first grade) for her precocious behavior. Later, in middle school, she started her own business, renting out pens and pencils to her fellow classmates. She’s continued pushing boundaries, asking difficult questions, and challenging assumptions. Her undergraduate degree was in Chemistry, with her future plans aimed at going to medical school, but a chance interview with Proctor & Gamble on her college campus changed her career trajectory. She ended up getting an MBA and working at P&G for 22 years, traveling all around the world servicing plants, before moving into the corporate design organization in the company, which was still in its early stages. Holly’s introduction to design thinking would also come during her time at P&G, when she returned to work after maternity leave – and it changed her life. After that first training, Holly entered a rigorous design thinking training program co-developed by Stanford d.school. She would eventually take over P&G’s North American design thinking role, and two years later, she became the head of the company’s Global design thinking. In 2018, Holly left P&G to start her own consultancy after numerous requests from business colleagues asking her to come and do the same team training and work she was doing for P&G. Now, she’s in the process of finding ways to transition her work into the virtual space while still maintaining the same thoughtful, meaningful experience that comes from an in-person event. Listen in to learn more about: The intersection between innovation and leadership How our “on demand” culture can create challenges when it comes to time expectations and design thinking Our society’s obsession with perfection and getting things right The two things Holly believes prevents innovation teams from achieving their goals How learning design thinking is like learning a new language The importance of the right mindset in an organization wanting to use design thinking The HIPPO concept What Holly considers when building teams The facilitation exercise Holly uses to build rapport and connection in a team When an organization really needs someone outside the org to facilitate a team  Our Guest’s Bio Holly O’Driscoll is an industry expert in the field of Design Thinking and human centered innovation. Throughout her 20+ year career, Holly has built a reputation as a master human centered innovation strategist, trainer and facilitator having led programs in more than 20 countries. She is the former Global Design Thinking Leader at Procter & Gamble, where she led more than 250 workshops, often at the request of C-suite executives. She is the founder and CEO of Ampersand Innovation, LLC; a Design Thinking and human centered innovation strategy consultancy. Show Highlights [02:20] Holly’s very early start into pushing boundaries and challenging assumptions. [05:05] The chance interview with Proctor & Gamble during college that changed Holly’s career plans. [07:43] Her introduction to design thinking. [09:00] Holly’s transition from P&G to starting her own consultancy and teaching at Rutgers. [11:50] The early challenges Holly faced while facilitating design thinking [13:00] Holly talks about some of today’s challenges for design thinking because of the “on demand” business culture. [14:50] Making design thinking part of a business’s everyday mindset. [17:37] Holly’s advice for building and leading a strong team. [19:04] The two things that can keep an innovation team from being able to solve tough problems. [20:50] How learning design thinking is a little like learning a language. [21:55] The importance of leaders providing opportunities, support, and space for people to practice their design thinking skills. [25:46] Holly talks about how mindset is a key to successful, sustainable design thinking in an organization. [28:00] Choosing curiosity and the sense of being on a learning journey over being right. [30:18] The HIPPO concept and how it can affect a team. [31:09] Key leadership qualities needed to create a safe space for innovators. [31:31] The correlation between inter-team relationships, social capital, and a team’s success. [32:49] The importance of thinking about mindset and social capital when building a team. [33:01] The things Holly considers when assembling a team. [34:00] Holly’s facilitation exercise at the first meeting of any team that helps teams build personal connections and relationships. [37:03] The signs and signals of a team that has started to come together. [40:02] Books and resources Holly recommends. Links Holly on Twitter Holly on LinkedIn Holly on Design Thinking Ireland Holly on Rutgers University’s Center for Innovation Education Interview with Holly on Irish Tech News Podcast Interview with Holly on TechCentral.ie Book: Why Design Thinking is Good Business Thinking, by Holly O’Driscoll Books Holly has contributed to:          The Future of Making, by Tom Wujec, editor Design Thinking at Work: How Innovative Organizations are Embracing Design, by David Dunne Innovation by Design: How Any Organization Can Leverage Design Thinking to Produce Change, Drive New Ideas, and Deliver Meaningful Solutions, by Thomas Lockwood and Edgar Papke Book Recommendation: Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, by Carol S. Dweck Book Recommendation: Decisive: How to Make Better Choices in Life and Work, by Chip Heath and Dan Heath Book Recommendation: The Power of Moments: Why Certain Experiences Have Extraordinary Impact, by Chip Heath and Dan Heath Book Recommendation: Beyond Measure: The Big Impact of Small Changes, by Margaret Heffernan Book Recommendation: Originals: How Non-Conformists Move The World, by Adam Grant Book recommendation: The End of Average: Unlocking Our Potential by Embracing What Makes Us Different, by Todd Rose TED Speaker Margaret Heffernan Other Design Thinking 101 Episodes You Might Like Leading a Design Thinking Consultancy, Betting Small to Win Big, and Driving Business Growth with Design Thinking with Natalie Foley — DT101 E5 From Branding to Design + Teaching Design Teams + Leading Summer of Design with Karen Hold — DT101E13 Building Design Capacity + Measuring Design Value + Designing Studios with Doug Powell — DT101 E16 ________________ Thank you for listening to the show and looking at the show notes. Send your questions, suggestions, and guest ideas to Dawan and the Fluid Hive team. Cheers ~ Dawan Free Download — Design Driven Innovation: Avoid Innovation Traps with These 9 Steps Innovation Smart Start Webinar — Take your innovation projects from frantic to focused!

Today’s guest is George Aye, the co-founder of Greater Good Studio and an Adjunct Full Professor at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. We talk about creating a design studio driven by social impact, how to make facing the hard, ethical questions part of how a team functions, and what it means to design and lead with a deep awareness of power and its absence. Dawan Stanford, is your podcast host. Show Summary George’s path to design began in England, where he studied mechanical engineering at university before being fortunate enough to be given the opportunity to work with IDEO in their Chicago office. It meant packing up and moving overseas. For George, his time with IDEO was pivotal, both to his understanding of what design was, but also for what it felt like to work as part of a world-class team. During his time at IDEO, George was already noticing questions about the work, why we do it, and why certain projects — those with a clear social mission — engendered very different feelings in him than those without that mission. He wondered how he might focus this work on the social mission projects. Seven years on, he would leave IDEO to work at the Chicago Transit Authority, where he designed a bus and researched bus ridership. When the political environment shifted and he was let go from the CTA, George started teaching at the Art Institute of Chicago. It was here that his idea for a design studio focused solely on the social sector began to take shape. Since co-founding Greater Good Studio, George has continued to ask the hard questions, and encourages his team and his students to do the same. George talks about why these questions are important, the dynamics of power and how it can offer insight into people’s motivations and behaviors, and how to incorporate these discussions into the daily functioning of your design team.  Listen in to learn: Some of the ethical questions George and his team tackle when approaching a potential project with a client Why it’s a good thing to always be asking “What are we doing, and why?” How questioning assumptions is essential for good decision-making The importance of creating a “psychologically safe” workplace George’s thoughts about power and understanding how it shapes behavior and outcomes Ways to bring learned expertise and lived experience together in teaching design Why the idea of “saving people” is problematic Our Guest’s Bio George co-founded Greater Good Studio with the belief that design can help advance equity. Previously, he spent seven years at global innovation firm IDEO before being hired as the first human-centered designer at the Chicago Transit Authority. Since founding Greater Good, he has worked across complex social issues such as criminal justice, civic engagement, public education, public health and youth development. He speaks frequently across the US and internationally. George holds the position of Adjunct Full Professor at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Show Highlights [02:16] George talks about how he got into design via engineering. [02:54] His move from London to Chicago to work at IDEO. [03:38] George discovers a preference for projects with a clear social mission and impact. [04:50] Leaving IDEO to work for the Chicago Transit Authority. [05:13] George realizes he wanted to work at a place with a clearly stated public mission, something larger than himself. [05:52] How George got into teaching. [06:13] The ideas that drove the founding of Greater Good Studio. [07:37] Greater Good’s commitment to designing for the social sector. [07:55] George talks about Greater Good’s project vetting process and determining whether they have the right to do a project or not. [10:08] George recounts a time he and his team wrestled with whether they had a right to take on a project, and the process the team goes through during those discussions. [11:35] The ways the team interrogates a project, and how they share power. [13:14] The ethical questions George had around a project for automated vehicles. [14:27] Rigorous questioning as a normal part of Greater Good’s process. [16:37] How George handles onboarding someone new to the team and Greater Good. [18:57] Breaking through ingrained assumptions and making constant efforts to create a workplace of psychological safety. [20:20] The idea of “hosting” with regards to a team member’s career. [21:40] The impact of endings, and how they can color your entire experience. [24:44] George talks about power and powerlessness, and continuing to learn what they mean to him and how they affect the work. [26:16] Using power as a lens through which to view the world, to better understand how people operate. [27:46] The desire to understand behavior is a core component of the work Greater Good does. [28:04] Power as a framework to understand motivations and diagnose behaviors. [28:47] George gives an example from his time at CTA of viewing a situation through a power lens. [32:25] The devaluation of lived experience when compared to learned expertise. [35:30] How George is changing the way he teaches and works with students. [38:04] Teaching students the problems associated with the idea surrounding “saving” people. [38:46] Ways in which George guides students in choosing their design projects. [40:00] Examples of the interesting projects George’s students have done. [41:50] Some of the difficulties surrounding charity, altruism, and lasting social change. [45:47] The dangers of neocolonialism in design. [47:37] Books and resources George recommends. [51:07] Where to find out more about George and Greater Good Studio.   Links George on Twitter George on LinkedIn George at SAIC Greater Good Studio Greater Good Studio on Medium Articles by George: Why designers write on the walls (and why you should, too) Design Education’s Big Gap: Understanding the Role of Power It’s Time to Define What “Good” Means in Our Industry The Gut Check, by Sara Cantor Aye The Reductive Seduction of Other People’s Problems by Courtney Martin The Perils of Using Technology to Solve Other People's Problems by Ethan Zuckerman Book Recommendation: White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo Book Recommendation: Dare to Lead by Brené Brown   Other Design Thinking 101 Episodes You Might Like Leading a Design Thinking Consultancy, Betting Small to Win Big, and Driving Business Growth with Design Thinking with Natalie Foley — DT101 E5 Design for America: Students + Design Thinking + Community Impact, Part 1 — DT101 E36 Design for America: Founding + Present + Future, Part 2 — DT101 E37 ________________ Thank you for listening to the show and looking at the show notes. Send your questions, suggestions, and guest ideas to Dawan and the Fluid Hive team. Cheers ~ Dawan Free Download — Design Driven Innovation: Avoid Innovation Traps with These 9 Steps Innovation Smart Start Webinar — Take your innovation projects from frantic to focused!  

David and Mary Sherwin work with design teams in for-profit and nonprofit organizations via their consulting business, Ask The Sherwins, LLC. They’re also professors at the Pacific College of Art in the Design and Collaboration Program. In this episode, we go deep into designing teams, consider more effective ways to teach design and teams, and ways to make teams work when working remotely with Dawan Stanford, your podcast host. Show Summary David's background is in engineering and liberal arts. He graduated with an English degree, but had a side hustle doing graphic design. That’s where he discovered an interest in design. Much of his early design learning and education was accomplished by apprenticing at various design studios Then, he shifted into product and service design, and he worked in product development for some large software organizations.  Mary started in organizational development and content strategy, and then moved into teaching within the design discipline. Much of Mary's experience had been working with designers. Most of David's experience was from a designer's standpoint, working with people like Mary. Mary and David realized that the work they were doing on their respective paths had a lot of synergy and that they each held half of the solution. They started teaching together seven years ago. Three years after that, they founded their company after students in a special graduate-level teamwork class told them they should start their own business, because this was something companies wanted their employees to learn.  Since starting  Ask The Sherwins, Mary and David have discovered and developed the nuances of developing strong, well-functioning teams. From facilitating your new team at the start of the design process, to what to do when your team feels like it's falling apart, to working through cultural differences, Mary and David have robust processes for all of these team challenges. They discuss their management style, team-building exercises, and team maintenance practices on team design. Listen in to learn Why Mary and David’s ability to “professionally disagree” gives them an advantage when working with design clients Why their two different career paths gives two different perspectives on the design process About cultural biases, assumptions, and their role in design solutions Why Mary and David encourage students and professors to teach and learn from each other Advice on how to start your team Mary and David’s team facilitation process during their first meeting Team word tools to use when the team situation gets difficult When you should use behavioral questioning Our Guests’ Bio David and Mary Sherwin are co-founders of Ask The Sherwins, LLC, a consulting and training firm that helps design organizations develop the capabilities they need for better product design and stronger cross-functional teamwork. They have recently coached product and service design teams and provided training around innovation best practices for organizations such as Philips Oral Healthcare, Tipping Point Community, The Purpose Project, Google UX Community and Culture, and Eventbrite. The Sherwins are also active in the design education space. They lead workshops in the Copenhagen Institute of Interaction Design’s Summer School and currently teach in the MFA in Collaborative Design program at PNCA. In their spare time, David and Mary have collaborated on three books, including their most recent, Turning People Into Teams.   Show Highlights  [02:15] Mary and David talk about their origin story and how they arrived where they are now in design.  [04:26] How Mary’s experience in teaching played out in her design experience. [07:48] Components of a team from Mary and David’s perspective.  [10:08] Prototyping for norms, teams and individual thinking. [11:08] Advice for starting a team off well. [11:46] The importance of having team members discuss their values and the behaviors they want to see in the team. [12:50] The Why’s and How’s of the  Team Words card deck created by Mary and David. [16:55] How talking through values and behaviors at the beginning helps teams save time and deal with challenges and misunderstandings. [19:43] Ways a team’s “status quo”  can create invisible walls and obstacles for new team members.  [22: 35] What to do when everything that can go wrong with a team has gone wrong. [24:49] Habits to bring to your team to encourage connection and mutual support. [27:39] Why you should have a clear “etiquette” for your team. [28:53] How their consulting work influences what they teach. [30:38] Lessons they teach students when they deliberately break up a team. [33:56] Advice from Mary and David on how and who to hire or choose for a team.  [35:35] When a design challenge as part of the interview process can be helpful. [36:18] The two go-to “silver bullet” questions Mary likes — one for the interviewer and the interviewee. [40:57] A look at how David and Mary “ride along” on a project, and how they tailor their coaching strategy to the client. [43:18] Ways of working with remote team members and teams. [46:34] Technology, remote work, and working within human time limitations. [50:00] Advice to teams on how to make improvements and changes. [52:03] Mary and David talk about books they’ve read, their own books, and their ephemeral advice column.   Links Design Thinking 101 Fluid Hive Design Innovation Ask the Sherwins, LLC Contact Mary and David Teamwords: The Working Deck Books by David and Mary Sherwin: Turning People into Teams Creative Workshops Success by Design Book Recommendation: The Culture Map: Breaking Through the Invisible Boundaries of Global Business, by Erin Meyer   Other Design Thinking 101 Episodes You Might Like   Humble Design Leadership + Design Agency and Experience Design Evolution with Aleksandra Melnikova — DT101 E33   The Evolution of Teaching and Learning Design with Bruce Hanington — DT101 E39 ________________   Thank you for listening to the show and looking at the show notes. Send your questions, suggestions, and guest ideas to Dawan and the Fluid Hive team. Cheers ~ Dawan   Free Download — Design Driven Innovation: Avoid Innovation Traps with These 9 Steps   Innovation Smart Start Webinar — Take your innovation projects from frantic to focused!

Steve Portigal is the Principal of Portigal Consulting and an experienced user researcher who helps companies harness the strategic power of insights. He is the author of Interviewing Users: How to Uncover Compelling Insights. He also wrote Doorbells, Danger, and Dead Batteries: User Research War Stories. We talk about interviewing people, customer research, and storytelling with Dawan Stanford, your podcast host. Show Summary Steve started out in Human Computer Interaction (HCI), in the days before the World Wide Web and before the formal idea of user experience (UX) existed. He had a brief exposure to design as a profession through an article about industrial product design, and to the idea of bringing together people from many different disciplines to collaborate and create solutions to problems via another article about a project trying to determine how best to find a way to demarcate dangerous locations, like nuclear waste sites. These ideas planted seeds leading to his interest in design. Steve graduated with his Masters in HCI, had a summer internship in Silicon Valley, and eventually found a job in an industrial design consultancy to work on what was essentially proto-UX design with their software. At the same time, this company was exploring ideas surrounding ethnographic research and the idea of uncovering product opportunities, and Steve managed to apprentice himself with the team, where he learned about organizing and finding connections within data. He also had the opportunity to develop his initial interviewing skills, which he continued to hone as he started his own consultancy focused on user research. Steve was one of the first people in the early 90’s to develop design processes for user experience and research. We talk about Steve’s excitement for and interest in spending more time with stakeholders within a client’s organization. He has learned why a stakeholder’s perspective is essential in relation to the success of a project. He talks about creating “learning-ready” moments, how he helps people have these moments, and how learning and sharing the journey of learning affect learning retention. Listen in to learn: How Steve and others developed the design processes in the early stages of user experience and research  How Steve’s skills, interests, and the work he does for his clients has evolved over the years When Steve knows he’s found a great client Why he believes that learning together is when change can happen Why understanding stakeholders gives better results with clients Being able to embrace realistic expectations of what you can accomplish    Our Guest’s Bio Steve Portigal is an experienced user researcher who helps companies to think and act strategically when innovating with user insights. Based in the San Francisco Bay Area, he is principal of Portigal Consulting and the author of two books: the classic Interviewing Users: How To Uncover Compelling Insights and, Doorbells, Danger, and Dead Batteries: User Research War Stories.   He's also the host of the Dollars to Donuts podcast, where he interviews people who lead user research in their organizations. Steve is an accomplished presenter who speaks about culture, innovation, and design at companies and conferences across the globe.   Show Highlights  [02:09] Steve talks about his origin story and his introduction to the ideas of design and user experience.  [06:15] Steve’s first job at an industrial design consultancy. [08:15] Steve’s apprenticeship with the team exploring a nascent practice in what was basically user experience.  [09:58] Many companies were exploring and experimenting with these new ideas around user research in the 90s, and how that led to the development of best practices and processes around the work. [13:05] Steve’s litmus test for a new client. [13:37] How Steve’s role and work started to shift and change. [15:40] The way in which Steve sets up expectations with new clients and spending time with the stakeholders in a client’s organization. [16:20] The value in spending as much time with stakeholders as with users to gain a deep understanding of their motivations and perceptions. [19:03] Repetitive patterns and questions Steve sees with clients. [22:28] Using storytelling to help explain concepts and share information, and to help move clients through shared experiences and discussions. [24:04] Separating the value of the research from any action that may take place. [28:15] The importance of the “Why” of user research. [30:39] How Steve’s practice has evolved and the scope of his work today, now that many companies have in-house user research and design teams. [35:05] Steve’s specialized “master classes” for design teams. [38:52] What Steve wishes everyone knew about user research and what you can do with it, both personally and organizationally. [41:24] Steve’s reflections on a few of his learning experiences. [44:55] His experience with one of the experts he used in his consulting work. [48:35] What Steve might add to a new book about interviewing users and UX, should he decide to write one. [54:00] Where you can find out more about Steve and his work.   Links Portigal Consulting Steve Portigal on LinkedIn Steve Portigal on Medium Steve Portigal on Twitter Find Out More About Steve’s Books Dollars to Donuts Episode 30: Laith Ulaby of Udemy Dollars to Donuts Episode 27: Colin MacArthur of the Canadian Digital Service         Other Design Thinking 101 Episodes You Might Like   Problem Spaces, Understanding How People Think, and Practical Empathy with Indi Young — DT101 E6   Public Sector Design + Outcome Chains + Prototyping for Impact with Boris Divjak — DT101 E26   The Evolution of Teaching and Learning Design with Bruce Hanington — DT101 E39         ________________   Thank you for listening to the show and looking at the show notes. Send your questions, suggestions, and guest ideas to Dawan and the Fluid Hive team. Cheers ~ Dawan   Free Download — Design Driven Innovation: Avoid Innovation Traps with These 9 Steps   Innovation Smart Start Webinar — Take your innovation projects from frantic to focused!