Survey of Design Resources

 

In early May, I gave a presentation on the topic "Design Thinking & Project Management". At the beginning of my presentation, I polled the participants about their relationship with design with respect to their projects and organization. One-third of the respondents indicated "Design is already part of our process and culture". The remaining two-thirds of the participants chose the option "I'm interested, but I don't know where to start."

Clearly there is interest in Design Thinking within the PM community, but many do not know how to become more informed on the tools and methods.

The aim of this blog post is to provide a short list of well-known Design Thinking resources that Project Managers and their teams can start using to become more knowledgeable on the subject.

Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford (aka d.school)

If there is one place for Project Managers to start learning more about Design Thinking, I would highly recommend the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford, more commonly known as the "d.school."  The d.school provides a "Virtual Crash Course on Design Thinking" on their website at http://dschool.stanford.edu/

Even more importantly, the d.school has made available free their most-used design tools in a PDF document called the "The Bootcamp Bootleg" - http://dschool.stanford.edu/use-our-methods/the-bootcamp-bootleg/ As a PM new to the methods and tools, I highlight recommend downloading and studying the "Bootcamp Bootleg".

Google Ventures (GV) Design Sprint

GV has developed a 5-day process for tackling business questions through design, prototyping, and testing of ideas with customers. A guide for "The Design Sprint" is laid out nicely at http://www.gv.com/sprint/

IDEO

IDEO (pronounced "eye-dee-oh") an international design and consulting firm headquartered in Palo Alto, California, has been a leading proponent of applying design thinking methodology to design products, services, environments, and digital experiences.

IDEO has created a series of design thinking online courses (Cost: US$400 - US$600) at http://www.ideou.com/

One focus area for IDEO has been adapting design methodologies for providers of primary education. Their website "Design Thinking for Educators" http://www.designthinkingforeducators.com/ provides a starting point for educators who want to bring Design Thinking and the design processes into their classrooms. An excellent resource for process and methods of design, "Design Thinking for Educators Toolkit", is available as a downloadable PDF is available on the same site.

Frog Design (aka frog)

Frog is global product strategy and design firm founded in Germany and currently headquartered in San Francisco, California. Frog has developed and made available a "Collective Action Toolkit" that helps put design-thinking tools into the hands of local change agents to transform their communities. While this toolkit is more geared to solving community problems, the tools and methods can be applied to problem-solving in the government and business sectors.

http://www.frogdesign.com/cat

http://www.frogdesign.com/sites/default/files/pdf/frog_collective_action_toolkit.pdf

LUMA Institute

The LUMA Institute provides training programs for learning and applying key practices of human-centered design. Their "Looking, Understanding, Making" approach is very accessible to average people who may not necessarily think of themselves as "innovators".

https://www.luma-institute.com/story

https://www.luma-institute.com/resources

IBM Design Thinking

IBM has made their approach, IBM Design Thinking, freely available and open to all. IBM Design Thinking is billed as a scalable framework to help teams understand and deliver. At the heart of this framework is a is a set of behaviors focused on discovering users’ needs and envisioning a better future, called the "Loop." The Loop is a continuous cycle of observing, reflecting and making.

http://www.ibm.com/design/thinking/

I am passionate about evangelizing Design Thinking within the Project Management community. I welcome any feedback or comments below.