Design Thinking Workshop Report: Exploring Design Thinking Principles

This report provides a comprehensive overview of a series of design thinking workshops, detailing the application of various tools and methodologies. The workshops covered the distinction between problem-solving and problem-finding, emphasizing the importance of observation and visualization. Key topics included the use of personas, journey mapping, and brainstorming techniques. The report delves into research approaches, data types, and ethical considerations in data collection, including primary and secondary data sources. It explores rapid prototyping, its principles, techniques, and benefits, alongside the concept of learning launches, outlining planning, execution, and review processes. The report also reflects on group presentations and the application of design thinking tools in practical scenarios, demonstrating a thorough understanding of the design thinking process from problem identification to solution implementation.

Running head: DESIGN THINKING
Design Thinking
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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In our fourth workshop, we were taught the difference between problem solving versus
problem finding. One can find problems by identifying the obvious. We were also taught how
visualization can be a design thinking tool and also how Persona can be a design thinking tool as
well. Design thinking is more than a methodology that solves problems. In several cases, this
implies finding a problem that is different from the one that was originally anticipated to be the
problem. In our fourth workshop, we were given photos to observe on the topic, ‘A Day at the
Beach’ The plethora of problems at the beaches include accumulation of rubbish, lack of
adequate lifeguards, scarcity of shops by the beach side, people who were drunk and were
roaming freely and sexual harassment at the beach. Piles of garbage dumped at the beach causes
problems in fishing and also has an adverse effect on the aquatic animals as well as the people
who come to the beach. While trying to solve problems, one must ensure that one is merely
spotting a problem, and not observing or staring. While spotting problems, one must be careful
not to stare and one is not allowed to formally video or audio record people at the beach. One
must not invade other people’s privacy. The point of this exercise is to become aware of one’s
surroundings and be able to spot the problem without having to look for it. One should be able to
transform information into images. We were also taught about the two hemispheres in the brain.
Right brain holds visual and spatial holistic thinking while the left brain holds the sequential and
deductive reasoning. One should keep visualization simple and think in metaphors and analogs,
use storyboards and photographs to tell stories and create personas.
During our fifth week of study, we discussed “wicked” problems. Our professor spoke
about the journey map and asked us to write about our journey of undertaking a Master program.
I wrote about my journey to Australia, right from applying to Australia to arriving in Australia.
After that session, we were told to reflect on how it went, what worked in our favour and what

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did not work. We discussed about persona and empathy mapping. Our professor gave us a paper
with thirty circles on it and asked us to write on the circles what came to our mind immediately.
After this, our professor gave us another activity wherein he displayed some pictures on the
screen and told us to select any two pictures and make three amendments to the selected picture.
During our seventh week of study, we were introduced to research and research
approaches, types of data, sources of data and ethics (Montgomery, 2017). There are two
approaches to research. They are Qualitative approach and Quantitative approach. We were also
taught about Primary data and Secondary data. The sources of primary data include
Questionnaire survey that is self administered, Interview-based survey or structured interview.
This is administered by interviewer, has structured questions, and is similar to questionnaire.
Semi structured interview and unstructured interview are a source of primary data. Group
interview is also a source of primary data. The sources of primary data also includes panel
discussions and Delphi method. Observations are also sources of primary data. It can be
qualitative or quantitative. Primary data is a major tool in Design Thinking, especially
ethnographic approaches. Researchers can also play various roles in observations. The
differences between primary and secondary data include the fact that primary data will be
specific to one’s project wherein the data will be relevant. Secondary data may not be perfectly
aligned with one’s project. Primary data is always current and relevant while secondary data may
be outdated. Primary data is time consuming while secondary data generally consumes less time.
Primary data requires access to participants while secondary data does not require interaction
with people. Primary data carries ethical issues unlike secondary data. Ethics refers to norms and
standards of behaviour that guide moral choices about our behaviour and our relationships with
others. Ethical issues arises as soon as one does research with people. One should ensure privacy

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of participants by offering to do interviews in a separate room and not in an open-plan office and
also not divulge the details of the participants and refrain from telling other people who is
participating. One should also not force participants to take part and one should not tell people
that they have to take part in the survey and they have no choice. One should also get
organizational consent so that one is allowed to carry out research with the person in the
premises of one’s organization. One should also get individual consent from every person who
participates in the study. One should also resort to anonymity if an interviewee so wants. One
should resort to anonymity and not divulge the names of the participants if they so desire. One
should also ensure confidentiality if the participants so desires. We were also instructed not to
leave interview transcripts lying around or keep questionnaires, information of the participants or
company documents openly accessible.
Interviews of Design Thinking entail exploring the problems, thoughts, motivation,
emotions and views of the interviewee, being empathetic. We were also taught to adopt a
Beginner’s Mind Set and not make any kind of assumptions and to probe the reason. At the end
of the session, we were given tips to conduct an interview. We were told to avoid personal bias
and not ask leading questions and to go down to asking specific moments, specific experiences
etc. One should also get interviewees to tell the interviewer their story or journey and get
interviewees to tell the interviewer about their stories and emotions. One should also focus on
and deepens one’s understanding of pain points that the interview discusses and use probing and
follow-up questions a lot. One should pay attention to non-verbal cues, that is facial expressions,
tone of voice, gestures, laughter, body movements, and significant pauses among others. The
various principles of co-creation include enrolling customers who care about me. Diversity
equals to security, create a no-selling zone, present more than one concept, provide visual

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concepts and help customers to communicate visually, leave time for discussion and provide
timely feedback.
We were also taught about the concept of analysis which can be defined as the process of
organizing the large amounts of qualitative data into rich meaningful categories. It also entails
examining, categorizing, tabulating, testing or otherwise recombining the evidence in order to be
able to draw meaningful conclusions from the data. The aim of analysis is to make sense of data,
identity patterns and draw conclusions.
During our eight week of study we were taught about rapid prototyping and about early
and later prototypes. Rapid prototyping can be defined as the rough and quick manifestation of
concepts, iterative process of developing and improving the prototype. The first methods of rapid
prototyping were prevalent in the 1980s and were used to produce prototypes and models. The
aim of rapid prototyping is to transfer concepts into testable and feasible models before assigning
a large amount of money, energy and time to developing the real things. The principles include
building prototypes early, cheaply and often and considering prototype as a means to
communicate. Early rapid prototyping include on paper, 2D and were very crude and rough.
Later rapid prototyping is more refined, but nonetheless it is still rough, consists of more details
and features and is possibly 3D. Alternative later rapid prototyping is done with a 3D printer.
Prototyping techniques include sketching, storyboarding, Paper prototyping, Wireframing,
Physical prototyping. We were also taught the benefits of rapid prototyping wherein it helps one
to visualize one’s thoughts, has the ability to present a tangible product or service to customers
or investors or team members etc. This would help to gain inputs from them or gain funding. It
enables the early identification of flaws and areas of improvement. The drawbacks include
iterations that could be time consuming, rapid prototyping may cause flaws that require extensive

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remedies, which could have been avoided by more elaborate prototyping, the expectations of
customers regarding prototypes can be too high, a designer may be tempted to make it pretty etc
which would lead to a wastage of time on specifics. After one has analyzed large amounts of data
and after there are some concepts available, one needs to involve the customer, user and the
beneficiary, i.e. the person who is currently facing the problem that is being addressed. The best
way to do such a thing is by actual prototypes. These also help us test our assumptions. The
guiding principles include building prototypes cheaply, early and often, make mistakes fast, and
consider prototypes as a means to communicate. The prototyping skills include sketching, story
boarding and paper prototyping
During our ninth week of study, we were taught how to plan, execute and review a
learning launch. We were also taught approaches to launching innovations. Learning launch
equals to experiment in the market place. It is inexpensive and quick, its primary objective is to
learn, move from hypothetical behaviour to real customer behaviour, the need to feel real to
launchers and customers. It may also be called Play Testing and designers have to remain open
to feedback. In comparison to business, learning launches are about actions in the real world,
learning as one goes, testing assumptions and being good enough, stating the obvious in a
straightforward manner, focusing on behavioral metrics. Business on the other hand include,
analysis in conference rooms, achieving perfection, rolling out a finished product, fabricating
financials, failing and dying a slow death through denials. Examples of learning launch include
Pfizer trying to reinvigorate and revive Nicorette.
In order to execute the launch, tight boundaries are required, both in terms of time, goals
and location, pre-launch customer expectations and possible contracts of confidentiality,
management of dissatisfaction. There should be focus on untested assumptions, diverse launch

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team consisting of members who are both optimists and pessimists, emphasis on disconfirming
data, feedback cycle that is quick, i.e, weekly meetings and solid conflict resolution mechanism,
making it feel real and having a separate plan ready in case the original plan does not work.
One should feel free to explain the problem that one is addressing, stress the important
need for gaining honest and creative feedback, give users adequate time to explore the prototype
on their own. One should also use one’s interviewing skills to help one to interact with users and
get feedback that is more valuable. One should have a designated team member for interviewing
and another team member for observing and taking notes. One should also focus on the
experience of the user rather than focusing on asking specified questions.
We learnt from Learning Launch the importance of relevant data that is collected,
observations and immediate analysis wherein fast feedback is important, consider ethics when
observing, enables behavioral interpretation, may benefit from interviews and other
complementary data.
During our tenth week of study, we gave a group presentation. We saw the presentation
of an agricultural drone presented by another group. The project that we presented was Hands
Free Car Door Opener. In our presentation, we introduced and gave an explanation on Design
Thinking. We identified the problem, designed thinking tools to identify the solution. We also
showed evidence for use of design thinking; we provided solution to the problem and gave a
conclusion. In the presentation, we used tools like visualization, journey mapping, value chain
analysis, mind mapping and brainstorming.
Visualization refers to visualizing a concept, a journey map refers to a diagram or a
plethora of diagrams that depicts the various stages that a customer goes through when he or she

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interacts with the company from purchasing products online or lodging complaints with
customer care over the phone, to airline grievances on social media (Montgomery, 2017).
Journey maps are rooted in research and visually portrays the various phases customers
experience, in terms of customer sentiment, goals etc. Value chain analysis is a tool to
comprehend the internal mechanism of a firm. A value chain entails a range of activities
beginning with design, followed by production, marketing and at the end distribution that
business carry out in the process of bringing a product or service from the conception of its idea
till its delivery. Its primary objective is to recognize the most valuable activities of the firm and
the activities that could be improved in a firm in order to give competition to its competitors and
have a head start over competition (Kolko, 2015). Customer journey maps are important because
it helps to comprehend the path that customers take to get to a product. Mind mapping is an
extremely effectual way of getting information from one’s brain. Mind mapping can be defined
as a creative and logical means of taking notes that literally maps out one’s ideas (Raffi, 2017).
The main characteristics of mind mapping include the primary idea, which is depicted as a
central image. The ideas and themes radiate from the main image like branches. The branches
consist of a main image or a main word drawn on its associated line. The topics that are of less
significance are called twigs of a particular branch (Raffi, 2017) The branches led to a formation
of a connected nodal structure.
We also offered insights on concept development, assumption testing and rapid
prototyping. We also gave two examples on how to use the hands free door opener by using
footstep sensor and pedal by foot. Our professor gave us positive feedback and we were happy
with our presentation.

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Reflective writing can be defined as formal and organized written version of a person’s
reflections. Reflective writing entails putting on paper some of the thought processes behind
one’s reflection. Reflective writing is a very personal form of writing as it is all about oneself.
Reflective writing is all about writing for various purposes, for example diaries, personal
development, academic work, career development and training needs analysis, decision making,
making sense of what is happening around us and blogging on various issues that are close to
one’s heart.
This activity made me aware of myself and provided me with knowledge, gave me
experience, provided me with skills and confidence and self-esteem, gave me an understanding
of employability, empathy and viewpoint among other social skills. This activity has furthered
my knowledge about design and helped to hone my creative skills. Over the past few weeks, I
have also learnt a lot about myself in terms of personal development because of experiencing
entrepreneurial skills and design thinking activities in this unit. I have also gained in terms of
knowledge development because of experiencing entrepreneurial skills and design thinking
activities in this unit. I also gained an insight about entrepreneurship, innovation, design
thinking, and management business. The overall experience was very enriching and positive as it
helped me gain valuable knowledge and insight.

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