Design Thinking Workshop Moves Participants Towards Action
Stimulating thought that leads to action is a major goal of the Aspen Action Forum, and helping participants build the skills they need to do so is how we make that happen. We were lucky to have Justin Ferrell of Stanford’s Hasso Plattner Institute of Design, also known as the d.school, present at this summer's event. In one of our Skills Workshops, Justin led a session on design thinking to help participants approach solving problems in new ways.
“Design thinking, to me, is a way of working that helps multidisciplinary teams focus on the people they’re trying to serve, to understand their needs and develop meaningful solutions,” says Justin.
In the workshop, Justin lead Action Forum participants through a problem solving exercise that introduced them to the design thinking methodology he teaches at the d.school — empathize, define, ideate, prototype and test. After pairing up, learning about each other, and getting their hands dirty with a rapid prototyping scenario, participants walked away with four key lessons to take into their personal and professional routines:
- Focus on Human Values: Empathy for the people you're designing for and feedback from them throughout the work is fundamental to good design.
- Be Mindful of Process: Know where you are in your design process, what methods to use during that stage, and what your goals are.
- Embrace Experimentation: Prototyping is not simply a way to validate your idea. We build to think and learn.
- Bias Toward Action: Design thinking is a misnomer; it's more about doing than thinking. Bias toward doing and making over meeting and talking.
Interested in learning more about design thinking? Take a crash course in it yourself! A great library of resources can be found on the d.school website.
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