Co-innovation with Design Thinking
with Accenture Philippines
Role
Design Thinking Facilitator
Methods
Design Thinking, co-design
Type
Exploratory
Timeline
2020 - 2021
While at Accenture, I was part of the Liquid Studio Manila (now called the Philippine Hub of Innovation), which focused on creative innovation through design thinking.
In my role as Design Thinking Facilitator, I worked on more than 100 workshops that entailed working together with clients to assemble the appropriate methods to address their needs and then facilitating the implementation of those methods.
In addition to Design Thinking Facilitator, I was also a UX Designer and Research Analyst during my time with Accenture.
Things to consider
When developing a design thinking workshop, I am in constant communication with the organizing group. During these meetings and when beginning to conceptualize a workshop flow, I consider the goals of the team, the allotted time for the workshop, and the participants who will be joining us.
Goals: this will determine the overall flow of the session, what results do the teams want?
Time: some teams will only have 3 hours to do everything, while others will allow multiple days. How long should the activities be? How detailed should people's outputs be?
Participants: if participants have joined us for a session previously, we can expect that they are familiar with some methods and
Putting the pieces together
Through years of doing workshops, our team has generated a list of successful methods and templates that we pulled from whenever we ideated on a new workshop. I sometimes modify methods to work for shorter time allocations, simplify instructions, work better with other methods, or create new variations of outputs.
Designing a workshop is kind of like a puzzle, you have to make sure the pieces fit with each other and make sense when you look at the bigger picture!
Preparing for workshops
Preparations for workshops often included creating multiple virtual whiteboards (like Miro or Mural!) and templates for methods, setting up our video conferencing platform, and creating a schedule for the entire workshop.
Schedules have to be very specific since teams will often split into different breakout rooms during the course of the workshop. All facilitators and coaches need to be in communication on the speed and progress of each group, schedules help keep us right on track.
Activity templates were always fun to make since we got to get creative with designs while also considering the usability and understandability of an activity. We designed templates with the assumption that someone may have stepped out for a bit, lost their connection, or were unable to hear instructions – so they had as much information as possible (without looking messy).