Define

Bodystorming

In this physical variant on brainstorming, participants use their body and inexpensive materials or objects to role-play and mimic interaction with a system, product, or experience.

• Time: 45+minutes
• Group Size: 6+ people
• Level: Intermediate

May 6, 2021

Card Sorting

This hands-on activity allows participants to communicate and document their mental model and how they think about a set of information, creating a logical structure (e.g., relationships, sequences, timing).

• Time: 45+minutes
• Group Size: 4+ people
• Level: Advanced

May 7, 2021

Community Map

A fast way to capture and prioritize stakeholders.

• Time: 45+ minutes
• Group Size: 8+ people
• Level: Beginner

May 10, 2021

Culture Building Canvas

A framework based on “influence channels” that shape and define an organization’s culture. Helps teams develop an actionable, specific culture change plan for their organization.

• Time: 60+minutes
• Group Size: 4+ people
• Level: Intermediate

Journey Mapping

Visually synthesize and communicate a user’s end-to-end experience through actions, pain points, wins, and opportunities in a phased process.

• Time: 45+minutes
• Group Size: 4+ people
• Level: Advanced

Lotus Blossom

Focus the power of brainstorming using a structured, visual representation of ideas—pushing you to fill out every box with new ideas..

• Time: 60+minutes
• Group Size: 2+ people
• Level: Beginner

April 16, 2021

Mindmapping

Generate insights into relationships between concepts in a flexible and engaging way to visualize information.

• Time: 30+minutes
• Group Size: 2+ people
• Level: Beginner

May 10, 2021

Mission and Vision Canvas

Develop clear statements about your organization’s future aspirations and present activities.

• Time: 60+minutes
• Group Size: 6+ people
• Level: Intermediate

PAINstorming

PAIN stands for Persona, Activities, Insights, and Needs – the four main research topics explored in this structured method for gathering insights about users or customers identities.

• Time: 30+minutes
• Group Size: 2+ people
• Level: Beginner

Personas

A descriptive model of a person (user, stakeholder, team member, etc), this tool is most often used to help a team define and understand the needs of its customer.

• Time: 45+minutes
• Group Size: 6+ people
• Level: Intermediate

Premortem

Frame and explore your problem by imagining a future scenario in which the proposed activity fails to achieve its objective.

• Time: 60+minutes
• Group Size: 6+ people
• Level: Intermediate

Problem Framing

Explore a problem space and formulate a robust problem statement to ensure you’re solving the right problem.

• Time: 45+minutes
• Group Size: 2+ people
• Level: Intermediate

Prototyping

Developing an early version of a product to convey the look (form-appearance) and feel (function-behavior); can be static or dynamic in nature but is typically built quickly.

• Time: 60+minutes
• Group Size: 6+ people
• Level: Intermediate

Quickstart Stakeholder Engagement Canvas

A quick way to begin developing a plan for effectively engaging a stakeholder.

• Time: 60+minutes
• Group Size: 1+ people
• Level: Intermediate

June 29, 2021

Rose Bud Thorn

Visually categorize positive (rose), potential (bud), or negative (thorn) aspects of a topic (e.g., system, product, process).

• Time: 45+minutes
• Group Size: 4+ people
• Level: Beginner

May 10, 2021

Service Blueprint

Outline and visualize a service to connect the user experience, or “frontstage,” to what happens behind-the-scenes, or “backstage.”

• Time: 60+minutes
• Group Size: 5+ people
• Level: Advanced

Simplicity Cycle

Equip users with a visual vocabulary for discussing complexity and simplicity in a design to assess and express the value of adding or removing design elements.

• Time: 60+minutes
• Group Size: 6+ people
• Level: Advanced

Stakeholder Identification Canvas

Ideate a more comprehensive & representative set of relevant stakeholders to your project.

• Time: 30+minutes
• Group Size: 2+ people
• Level: Intermediate

Stakeholder Map and Matrix

Look across stakeholders and categorize them according to key variables (e.g., interest, influence, impact).

• Time: 60+minutes
• Group Size: 2+ people
• Level: Beginner

Stakeholder Power Categories

Use this canvas to quickly categorize and prioritize which stakeholders to engage based on power and impact. Highlight impacted stakeholders and ideate on how to elevate their roles on the effort.

• Time: 60+minutes
• Group Size: 1+ people
• Level: Intermediate

July 12, 2021

Stormdraining

The inverse of brainstorming, reduce a large collection of ideas, activities, or components to a smaller collection of the most valuable or promising ideas.

• Time: 60+minutes
• Group Size: 2+ people
• Level: Beginner

May 10, 2021

Storyboarding

Stories add a human element to design and data analysis activities. They foster empathy and let designers walk in the users’ shoes, increasing understanding of needs, activities, interests, and pain points.

• Time: 60+minutes
• Group Size: 4+ people
• Level: Intermediate

System Map

This tool captures the key roles, relationships, and dynamics of a system to enhance understanding of the big picture and potential disruptions to the system.

• Time: 45+minutes
• Group Size: 4+ people
• Level: Intermediate

Trimming

Iteratively remove unnecessary elements from a design using a structured approach to reducing complexity to produce a more elegant, streamlined final product, process, or organization.

• Time: 60+minutes
• Group Size: 4+ people
• Level: Intermediate

TRIZ Prism

Use known solutions to find new solutions to difficult problems.

• Time: 60+minutes
• Group Size: 4+ people
• Level: Beginner

Value Proposition Canvas

Map user profiles (i.e., jobs, pains, and gains) to values (i.e., gain creators, products and services, pain relievers) to ensure that a product meets user needs.

• Time: 45+minutes
• Group Size: 4+ people
• Level: Intermediate