Many of us learned design thinking in a contained environment, likely by attending a workshop or a sponsored session by a design organization like IBM Design or AIGA. As a matter of learning, that's great. But it can lead you to believe that design thinking only happens in a workshop. However, I'd like to propose a different approach, one that I call "grassroots design thinking", the basis of which suggests that the workshop is not the most atomic element of design thinking effectiveness. When you do design thinking at a more granular, grassroots level you, in fact, have a powerful tool to win over naysayers and critics.

1. Grassroots
design
thinking
Create design advocates one experience at a time.

2. I am John Murray
Design Lead, IBM Hybrid Cloud Developer Experience
Hello!

3. 3
◉ Design lead at IBM, 3 years
◉ Design leadership, 5 years
◉ Designer, 10 years
◉ Design thinking facilitator
◉ SC roots, Gamecock alum
About Me

4. Design thinking is everywhere
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There’s plenty of people telling you
how to do it, how it works, and how
it’s bullshit, but not enough people
are talking about the practical
application and how to make it
work for you.

5. What is it?
It’s a modular framework. A set of tools to
create user-centered experiences. Like any tool
it can be misused and misunderstood. So let’s
talk about how and why we use it at IBM.
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◉ Focus on user outcomes
◉ Multidisciplinary teams
◉ Restless reinvention
In Principle

7. Focus on user outcomes
Empathize with your users. Understand
their goals, pain points, and motivations to
create products that meet their needs and
empower them.
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You
Product manager
Engineer
Design lead
Manager
Executive
Buyer
Implementer

9. “
Everyone on your team knows
something about your users.
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10. Multidisciplinary teams
Use your team’s collective knowledge to
create profitable, user-centered products.
These teams allow you to break out of
siloed roles to create a unified experience.
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11. Design Thinking
3-in-a-box model

12. Restless reinvention
There’s no such thing as “finished”. Everything
is an iteration.
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◉ Empathy map
◉ As-Is/To-Be
◉ Prioritization Grid
◉ Question & Assumptions
◉ Stakeholder Map
Tools of
the trade

14. Empathy map
◉ Like a “visual persona”
◉ Allows stakeholders to quickly inform the
group on what they know about the user
◉ Starts out speculative, becomes concrete
through validate user research
◉ If left unvalidated, it’s meaningless
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15. Empathy map
Help us answer:
○ What are our user’s motivations?
○ What are our user’s pain points?
○ What does our user value?
○ What does our user think and feel?
○ What do we still not know about our user?
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17. As-Is/To-Be
◉ As-is: a diagnostic tool
◉ What’s the current experience?
◉ If you don’t know what’s wrong how can you
improve?
◉ To-be: a map of life after you solve the user’s
pain points
◉ Focus on steps in the end user’s journey.
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19. Other exercises
Prioritization grid
In any workshop,
you’ll have a lot of
”next steps”, some
more important than
others. This activity
helps you decide
what’s most
important.
Questions & Assumptions
In any group discussion
new questions will arise.
As the discussion
evolves, one or more
individuals might make
assumptions that need to
be validated later on.
This activity lets you
track and assign them for
follow up.
Stakeholder map
There are end users
and then there are
people who have a
vested interest in
your team’s success
or can give direction.
This activity lets you
see how they’re all
inter-related.
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20. “
At the end of the day it’s all about storytelling.
We use these exercises to tell a story
(at varying degrees of granularity) about our
user and the experiences they are having
with our product.
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21. In Practice
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22. Learned behavior
Most of us learn design thinking through doing
large-scale workshops.
◉ Contained environment
◉ Makes learning easier
◉ No judgements
◉ Just learning
In principle we do workshops

23. The reality
◉ Working with non-designers is difficult.
◉ Products aren’t always immediately
user-centered, aligned, and iterative.
◉ Sometimes you have an immature design org.
◉ Maybe there’s not enough designers.
◉ The dynamic may not be right for a workshop.
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24. Workshop Wager
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25. “
When we ask people to come to a
large-scale, multi-day workshop
without making a strong case for
design and design thinking tactics,
we’re making a wager.

26. On one side of the scale you want:
◉ Knowledge
◉ Alignment
◉ Sense of scope
◉ Product direction
◉ Shared understanding
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27. On the other side you deal with:
◉ Perceptions of design thinking
◉ Perceptions of design’s “place”
◉ Logistics and stakeholder buy-in
◉ Lack of experience collaborating
with a design team
◉ Too many stakeholders
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28. More stakeholders, more problems
With every stakeholder you add you increase
the difficulty of getting meaningful, actionable
outcomes from your workshop.
It’s easy to be to feel overwhelmed.
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29. Even designers at IBM can feel overwhelmed.

30. Perceptions of design thinking
One of the common complaints about design
thinking is that it’s a lot of Post-Its and a lot of
thinking, but not a lot of doing.
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31. How design thinking should be

32. How it often turns out

33. “
Short of having a CEO mandate to
adopt design thinking, how do you get
colleagues and stakeholders to buy in?
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34. a “grassroots” approach
to design thinking

35. Go “grassroots” if:
◉ You’re a lone designer or a small team
◉ Design is struggling to have a seat at the table
◉ You want to demonstrate the value of design
◉ You need, but don’t have clarity from stakeholders
◉ You work regularly with remote stakeholders
◉ Large-scale workshops aren’t feasible
◉ You believe in design thinking but need buy-in
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36. Adopting a grassroots mentality
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Think small Everything is a workshopDesign by example
Don’t try to get
cross-discipline alignment
all at once if your
stakeholders aren’t primed
and ready for it. Ease them
into a collaborative,
user-centered process.
Show the value of design
thinking and proper UX
process by design-doing-
by-example, one project at
a time. Create a track
record of delivery and
success over time.
Treating strategic design
deliverables as a workshop
lets you engage in the
spirit of design thinking
without the added
overhead of hosting a
multi-day workshop.

37. Think small.
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38. “
Success is rarely the result of one swell
swoop, but more often the culmination
of many, many small victories.
- Joseph M. Marshall III

39. The value of thinking small
In my time at IBM, experience and seniority are
the biggest obstacles to design thinking’s
success.
◉ Years in the job
◉ New = Fad
◉ Ingrained mentalities are hard to overturn.
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40. Focus on the battle not the war.
◉ Don’t force 3-in-a-box if it’s not there organically.
◉ Don’t act as though design is here to bring
everyone to their senses or rally the troops.
◉ Design thinking is NOT a silver bullet!
◉ Time, money, and urgency only make this worse.
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41. Control what you can control.
Your design team can’t be everywhere at once and
can’t be everything to everyone. Choose the small
engagements – the small battles that you want to
dedicate your team’s resources.
Think about the 80/20 rule.
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42. “Help me to help you.”
A “help me to help you” mentality is all about trying
to deliver on the work that you and your
stakeholders agree design should focus on.
◉ Relying on their domain knowledge
◉ Take an interest in their passion
projects/features
◉ You’re here to collaborate, not drive 42

43. Key takeaways
◉ Focus on the battle not the war.
◉ Control what you can control.
◉ “Help me to help you.”
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44. Design by example.
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45. “
The mediocre teacher tells.
The good teacher explains.
The superior teacher demonstrates.
The great teacher inspires.
- William Arthur Ward

46. Adjusting to the spotlight
As design has been embraced and given a seat at
the table alongside product management and
development, design at IBM has struggled to adjust
to its new-found fame.
This isn’t strictly an IBM problem, however.
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47. The designer’s struggle
◉ How do I show the value of my work?
◉ Isn’t the quality of my work self-evident?
◉ Why do I have to constantly justify my value?
The first and easiest step we can take is to become
better teachers.
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48. Find teachable moments
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Be willing to explain, even if it’s the 1,000th time. Be
willing to explain your design decisions with logical
justifications.
Design process shouldn’t be shrouded in secrecy.

49. Go beyond the finished article
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When we show the “warts-and-all” process behind
our work we:
◉ Build empathy for our craft
◉ Show design doesn’t just happen
◉ Find better ways to collaborate with stakeholders
◉ Open the door for low-risk collaboration

50. In action
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54. Any questions ?
@heyjohnmurray
Thanks!
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