If you daily work on development of digital products, probably you faced these questions lots of time:
"How can I save time and money? How can I predict and manage risks? How can I be more efficient, creative and proud of my work?"

There's not a unique solution, but I can help with design.

In my design crash course I gave people a framework, tools and tips for improving the way they usually work. 
It was a success for the entire group and for me: a win-win situation where they learn something useful and I had the possibility to prove myself and find new energy to invest in future projects.

Let's start with KPI's

The first and the most important KPI tell us that people radically changed their opinion on design during the course.
From "Design is about colours and style, it's a cool word, it's about fashion and creativity" we landed to:

Design it's a powerful instrument

Giovanni

It's a path of improvement

Chiara

It's the way for finding simple solutions to problems

Massimiliano

With design I can reach my goals and make clients and users both happy

Marco

The second KPI is about the general experience of the course. I asked attendant if they would suggest it to colleagues or friend and...YES! It was a success and I'm organising next iterations with some of them.

Then I asked people "What did you like most and why?".
Most of them said that Crazy 8s and practical activities are the most appreciated because they felt involved and had the possibility to visualise ideas.
Some of them asked me to longer this part.

And the last KPI comes from a followup interview with a young project manager that said:

This could really change our relationships with clients: involving them in the design process will avoid misunderstandings and faster the product development!

Chiara

self-five

 

A quick look to the course 

Every course should start with a warm-up for creating the right atmosphere and ensure cooperation. So I planned to follow the Nickname game but...I forgot the ball at home, so we all turn in a rugby team and launched a small bottle of water from one member to another. It was funny and no one went to the hospital!

Then I collected the individual idea of design and placed the post-it on the left of my analog chart (the one you saw above).

I covered the topic of design buy-in because, in a work environment, all the team should embrace the change in order to make it effective.
I think that it's a question of investigating prejudices, find system flaws and providing one solution at a time and proper KPIs.
It requires lot of resolution and for this reason I told guys the inspiring story of Daniela Petrillo.

And finally it came the design challenge: design a pet care app.

I lead the group across this challenge using an approach very different from their habits. Main rule: don't think to solutions or features until we framed the problems and opportunities.

We work on several activities:

  • define the user journey and the critical steps;
  • evaluate the user goals and needs with personas;
  • refine the journey and write down the opportunities with "How might we" technique;
  • vote the most interesting opportunity;
  • develop a wireflow with the Crazy8 methods;
  • present ideas;
  • vote the best solution that, in a real situation, will become a prototype.

 

In a crash course like this there's no time for showing how to prototype and test but I covered these topics with tips and practical examples.

I wrapped-up the experience collecting their new idea of design from the group. 
It was a success, like you saw in the KPIs above: in 3 hours I shifted their mindset and it was a great achievement for me!

Acknowledgments

Thanks to Marco Melis that gave us a beautiful location at DaoCampus, thanks to Women techmakers Pisa that supported me in this adventures and thanks to all the participants for their trust, the precious feedbacks and for having a funny afternoon together.