8 Benefits of Design Thinking Workshops

This article was written as part of the interview process for AJ&Smart.

(New around here? Check out Workshopper’s Ultimate Beginner’s Guide to Design Thinking!).

Design Thinking is a creative problem-solving approach that brings new value to customers and organizations, helping us challenge our assumptions and innovate in ways we never thought possible.

At Workshopper, we have found that Design Thinking workshops can drastically change the way we think about our products, consumers, and even processes. These workshops not only unearth true gem ideas, they help actualize team members, get them on board, and radically improve processes both now and in the future…

The range of questions we explore in Design Thinking workshops vary wildly – “what do our customers really want?” and “how can we make the recovery process more pleasant for patients?” are just two snappy examples.

In any case, the solution is roaming free and untamed on some distant, uncharted plain in our imagination. Design Thinking workshops unlock previously untapped creative potential – while keeping the customer and their needs front and center.

Let’s take a look at 8 unexpected benefits of this often groundbreaking process:

It challenges our assumptions and help us see things in new ways.

The very concept of an externally-facilitated workshop adds a new, unclouded lens to the problem. Bringing in a new stakeholder can stimulate fresh discussion and ideas in the group, and as the team explains or justifies their current ways of doing things to an outsider, they may identify holes and room for improvement. This challenging of norms and biases is the crucial first step in design thinking.

It helps unlock new creativity – in the most structured possible way.

The stereotype of designers as feckless creatives throwing paint at the wall couldn’t be further from the truth. Design Thinking seeks to lock down the most inspired, energetic parts of the creative process and apply a reliable, rigorous framework to deduce winning ideas. In Design Thinking workshops, you will agree on the key questions and problems ahead of time, and your facilitator will implement exercises to properly explore these -within a time limit. We’ve all had brainstorming meetings which go way off track, dwell far too long on lightweight problems, or speed ahead to an easy solution rather than really getting into the thick of the issue. Design Thinking reframes this process in a replicable way, which guarantees your questions are answered with maximum creativity – in a minimum amount of time.

It sparks bright new ideas – and ensures the perfect one doesn’t go unsaid.

“The best way to have a good idea is to have a lot of ideas.” – Linus Pauling

Most of us have already found that just bouncing your ideas off someone else may inspire an offshoot, redesign, or even a complete change of track. Design Thinking Workshops cultivate this creative spirit and leave no stone unturned in the search for the winning solution. Design Thinking is an inclusive concept which builds itself on the assumption that everyone’s unique perspective and experiences generate one-of-a-kind (and potentially groundbreaking) ideas. Our workshop exercises empower and encourage everyone to get thinking and share their thoughts with the group. The trial and error approach of unlocking and exploring every possible idea before narrowing it down to the clear winners can lead to amazing, unexpected successes. Even terrible ideas teach us something: what is it that we should NOT do?

For more on ideation techniques, check out Workshopper’s article on Design Thinking Phase 3: Ideation.

It recenters customers at the heart of our design – and helps us rediscover why we do what we do.

Paul Rand famously said: “design is so simple. That’s why it’s complicated.”

When we spend our time working behind the scenes, we may forget the perspective of someone who has never used our product, or may not be aware of the full range of reasons they may need to use it. To help you refocus, Design Thinking workshops begin with a crucial (but simple!) exercise: empathizing with your user, and endeavoring to deliver a more human-centered design. Human-centered approaches – for example having the workshop participants live the customer’s experience and interact naturally with products or services – may help glean these “seemingly obvious” yet pivotal insights. These rethinks dispel assumptions and often spark ideas for future improvements, or entirely new concepts. The Design Thinking process identifies tangible pain points and develops the clear, actionable outputs we need to address them.

Interested in figuring out what simple solutions you may be missing? Read Workshopper’s Guide to Empathizing with your customer to discover a few exercises like “the 5 Whys” and “Beginner’s Mindset” to get you thinking.

It leads to a whole host of competitive advantages.

Executives are well aware that structured creative thinking is the key to unlocking new success – but they may be pleasantly surprised by just how much time, energy and money can be saved thanks to this streamlined process. The obvious benefits of Design Thinking are smarter, more thought-out products which truly address your customers’ needs (or go one step ahead and fulfill a nascent need). The Design Thinking process itself grants further savings in that it reduces time to market and saves a great deal of time on prototyping and development, thanks to its built-in feedback loops and troubleshooting.

It inspires and empowers new leadership & innovation.

The Design Thinking process actively involves employees across teams in the Design process and subsequent project – and creates massive buyin. Contributing their own ideas and fleshing out those of their colleagues heightens employees’ level of personal interest and investment in bringing the concept to life. At the end of the project, they can feel truly proud of their work and reflect on the new perspectives and learnings gained from such a hands-on role. This empowering experience instills valuable new skills and may inspire them to innovate and lead ideas in the future.

It fosters epic co-creation.

Design Thinking may reshape the way your organization solves problems, and the willingness for co-creation is one of the most welcome effects. Design Thinking puts interdisciplinary experts – and people of all different backgrounds and experiences – in the same room and on the same project. Instead of measuring individual success or focusing on their “own” work, they co-create and pool all ideas to ensure the final result reflects the very best of the group’s collective insights. The tangible result often inspires teams with the knowledge that “together”, they truly can achieve more, and may inspire new collaborative efforts in the future.

It facilitates enriched communication – now, and in the future.

An offshoot of this co-creation is improved communication, empathy and dialogue within the organization. This is a positive move toward breaking down silos and providing context between teams. New knowledge, perspectives, and experiences may also help employees gain new adaptability and insight to apply in their everyday role. Product designers with an insight into the development process, developers who understand what users hope to achieve with their product, and marketers who understand the technical ins and outs of the product they are selling, are just some of the many examples. New learning and feedback create an iterative process whereby the firm continually improves.

Conclusion

“Design Thinking is a mindset, not a toolkit or a series of steps”

Design Thinking doesn’t teach just one skill: it’s a whole new way of thinking, and this cultural and systematic change is felt across your entire organization.

Aside from getting your creative juices flowing, Design Thinking workshops fine-tune your ideation processes and hopefully inspire you to think outside the box in everything you do. Importantly, they empower employees to learn from one another and cooperate in ways they previously hadn’t thought possible. When you begin solving problems with Design Thinking, you never know what could come next – you may even discover a new guiding light or strategic goal to work toward.