Design Thinking INFORMED Facilitation
One of my favorite things to do is to facilitate workshops and watch the magic unfold as participants learn how to integrate the design thinking methodology into their work. I’d love to work with your company, networking group, conference, or stakeholders to add this endlessly helpful modality to their toolkit. I’ve been practicing and teaching design thinking for a decade, and over the past couple of years, I have been studying and weaving equity-centered design into my practice. Equity is at the center of how I facilitate this process.
What is equity-centered design thinking?
Design thinking is a creative problem-solving methodology that centers empathy and humans at its core.
Equity-centered design layers on the conversation and exploration of historical narrative and context, considers power dynamics and including those who are affected by decision making in those decisions, and humility into the traditional design thinking approach.
There are three phases:
Inspiration
Ideation
Implementation
These phases allow participants to first evaluate and collect information about the issue before ideating and implementing ideas that genuinely are rooted in the needs of the people they are designing for and with. Equity-centered design thinking purposefully centers the community for which the offering or solution serves—offering them equal stake and power in the decision-making. This approach is fundamental when working on offerings, services, and solutions for marginalized or underrepresented people.
Why equity-centered design thinking?
It’s an endlessly useful methodology—from launching initiatives to writing marketing copy, you will continue to use this process beyond our time together
It’s fun and interactive—not just another frontal, stuffy presentation. Instead, your team, workshop participants, or community members will be designing together in real-time
You get a goodie bag—regardless of the topic of our facilitation time, your participants will take away useful tools they can use throughout their work
It’s simple, yet profound—there’s nothing revolutionary here, it’s just rethinking our approach and what order we take to center humans, and equity, first
It’s great for team building—you can accomplish a lot in a few hours of facilitation, and it gives your team shared language and tools to work with during the workshop and after
great for:
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• Design thinking is a fun, creative process for your team to work on together
• They will walk away with shared tools and language to continue to innovate and problem solve within their work
• It’s a useful framework for teams to have a low-pressure opportunity to learn to experiment together
• It provides a framework, and gives you tools and practice, for using empathy in your work
• It’s multidisciplinary, allowing people to work together who may not otherwise
Use case: Great for a staff retreat or board meeting.
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• By training your staff in design thinking, you are training them in a cutting edge methodology they can use in their work
• It helps you understand your customers (or audience) more easily and precisely
• Each phase we will cover is expandable and usable in different scenarios
• It makes you and your company relevant—younger people don’t want to be sold to, they want to be understood. Equity-centered design thinking provides a process to get there.
Use case: Perfect for professional development day or conference.
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• A facilitated process to help you move through space when you are stuck
• This process is empathy-driven, and takes the onus off of you to solve your company’s challenges alone
• It’s efficient, can shake up stagnant energy, creative, and generative
• You will make progress in working towards a solution to your challenge
• It invites all the stakeholders together for a productive conversation
• It’s a lower-stakes investment than committing to building a solution and having it be wrong
Use case: Ideally used for teams looking to advance in an area where they are stuck, or solve problem within their department or business.
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• Equity centered design thinking will give you a process to start and grow your business or initiative from
• Gives you a bunch of tools to experiment with (so you know what to google and aren’t stuck in “what the heck am I supposed to be doing?” territory)
• Endlessly useful—this isn’t just for launching, and isn’t just for growing. The process can be used at any phase of launch or growth.
• Emphasizes prototyping and experimentation over perfectionism and investing in expensive startup costs that may or may not work out—data first!
Use cases: Great for solopreneurs and small teams when launching new businesses or offerings (or conferences and professional networking group that caters to this audience!)
The details
Workshops range from 1.5 hours to full-day, or split over the course of several days. They are customizable to your settings and needs.
I’ve facilitated workshops for 5-500+ people. We can tailor it to your audience and needs and goals.
Steps in the equity-centered design process can be pulled out and facilitated as standalone offerings (such as rapid prototyping, or exploring empathy).
Please reach out with what you’re looking for assistance for facilitation with—we will discuss and I will tailor a workshop or facilitation offering that suits your specific needs.
