Go for Launch

So we kicked off our latest cohort class for Design Thinking. In a meta turn of events, we have treated this class as a grand Design Thinking challenge all along; let me explain. Each time we have run this class, I expected it would mostly be the same and it would give us the opportunity to change one facet of the class and see how that affected the participants or the engagement, etc. For a variety of reasons that has never worked out. Rather, we have been handed a larger scale change each time that we've had to adapt to, with the last being the most impactful - a class we started in person, paused and then finished 100% virtual. In other words, we are eating our own cooking so to speak.

Given the dynamic nature of the virus, the vaccine and return to work plans, we decided rather than wait we would start another cohort now, planning that it would be completely virtual from start to finish. In some ways it wasn't ideal; I have always contended that a crucial part of the class was the interaction among the participants across different parts of the company, and that was easier in the spaces around class. On the flip side, this change made it a lot easier for us to more naturally include colleagues from our global offices, and I think that's an important element for us.

So I am glad we are underway again, and excited to share with, and learn from our newest cohort. Yesterday we focused on introductions, an overview of the process and let them loose with a very quick design sprint, meant to give them a flavor of how all the parts fit together. We stacked some classes this week which we don't normally do, we worked with strengths today, and will spend time talking about biases and how to help remove those from your view on Thursday and then wrap up Friday with our intro to storytelling (our class ends with presentations back to project stakeholders).

I am grateful for the opportunity to be part of this class, and for the cadre of team members who help in so many ways to make this material come to life for the class.

Read the next in the series, Empathy Research here.