Workshop activities to Analyse, Understand and Innovate

A concept sketch is a fast freehand drawing.

To be used in Ideation phase.

In Min Specs, participants generate a list of all potential dos and don’ts for achieving a purpose and then reduce it to the absolute minimum requirements. By eliminating nonessential rules (max specs), Min Specs gives groups more freedom and promotes responsibility. It can also help a group scale up innovations with fidelity. Following the rules makes it possible for the group to go wild! This structure gives life to LS Principle #6, Amplify Freedom and Responsibility.

In Appreciative Interviews, participants tell each other stories about how they successfully faced a challenge and identify what made them successful. In less than an hour, a group can identify the conditions essential for its success. This structure generates momentum and insights for positive change, and shows that social support is key to success.

You can overcome the tendency of organizations to underinvest in social supports that generate success while overemphasizing financial support, time, and technical assistance.

It brings to life LS Principle #5, Practice Self-Discovery Within a Group.

With this facilitation technique you can immediately include everyone regardless of how large the group is. You can generate better ideas and more of them faster than ever before. You can tap the know-how and imagination that is distributed widely in places not known in advance.

Open, generative conversation unfolds. Ideas and solutions are sifted in rapid fashion. Most importantly, participants own the ideas, so follow-up and implementation is simplified. No buy-in strategies needed! Simple and elegant!

This structure reinforces LS Principle #1, ­Include and Unleash Everyone.

‘Who, What, Where, When, Why and How’ is a method used to obtain a thorough understanding of a problem.

This exercise, based on Kahneman and Tversky's classic study, illustrates how the framing effect influences our judgement and our ability to make decisions. The participants are divided into two groups. Both groups are presented with the same problem and two alternative programs for solving them. The two programs both have the same consequences but are presented differently. The debriefing discussion examines how the framing of the program impacted the participant's decision.

An Emoji story is a method to interpret collected data by translating it into a story. In the story, you leave out specific words that describe important and emotional concepts and change them for Emoji‘s.

To be used after having collected data of user behaviour, context and emotions.

This is a method for individuals and teams to define the structure, direction and first steps of a project. The individual or team works through a set of questions and documents the answers in a sharable digital format. This can either be a “living” document that develops with the project it can be left as just a clear and concise record of the starting-point.

Future workshop is a method that aims to have stakeholders design their desired future, avoiding constraints imposed by experts or organizations.

To be used when ideas need to be developed outside of the design team.

DAD makes it easy for a group to discover better practices that only a few members are using to solve a common problem, called positive deviant behaviors.

We’re going to uncover the behaviors and practices some of us are already using to tackle our shared challenge. It’s like going on a treasure hunt to find the solutions hidden in our midst.”When held in a local setting close to where the problem manifests, it creates a safe space to invent new and more effective practices, sparking imagination and strengthening resolve to take action. It also builds relationships between people in diverse roles. This structure enacts LS Principle #2, Practice Deep Respect for People and Local Solutions.