Workshop Design

A set of carefully organized and thought out activities can help designers, and non-designers alike, think creatively. Group activities and open minded environments allow people to feel safe about sharing ideas and thought that they otherwise might not.

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Strategy Session for SCAD's Collaborative Learning Center Staff

SCAD’s Collaborative Learning Center connects faculty and students with industry partners to creatively solve design and business challenges. The CLC staff is in charge of developing these partnerships and academic opportunities. After being recommended by Prof. Tom Hardy, the CLC staff asked me to facilitate an internal strategy session for the team. The session began with an informal warm-up, followed by a debrief, a reflection, a set of goals and steps to achieve them.

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Design Thinking Workshop for Architecture Students

I was invited to go back to the School of Architecture at the University of Puerto Rico, where I studied, to offer a workshop. The Design Thinking Workshop was offered as part of a research class but open to the general public. I defined what design thinking was, presented models such as the Double Diamond, showed examples of applied research methods and integrated activities that helped relate the theory with the field of architecture.  

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Inside Looking IN: Opportunity Toolkit (Thesis)

One of the insights from my thesis research was that there was a lack of innovative thinking in Puerto Rico and that ideas tended to be imported and adapted. As part of a bigger service that aimed to build trust between the community and the entrepreneurs, I designed three different workshops to help participants turn community challenges into business or design opportunities. They start with a systems-thinking approach to understanding the problem, followed by a glance at external factors are their potential effects in the future, and finally with identifying a path or initial idea. Other initiatives exist to help entrepreneurs once they have identified an idea.  

Iceberg Workshop

(Based on Peter Senge’s Iceberg Model)

1. The main issue as identified by the community will be placed at the ‘top of the iceberg’.
2. The team will go back to the discussions they’ve had around the topic to answer the following questions with as many relevant answers as they can come up with.
   1. Who is responsible for this?
   2. Who is affected?
   3. When does this happen? When did this start?
   4. How did this happen? How is it affecting the environment or people in the community?
   5. Why did this happen?
3. After all possible answers have been written on post-its and placed on the map, the group should take some time to look at the answer and look for connections. Are some ‘whos’ directly related to some ‘whys’, but not others? The team should note those reflections and locate them on the “What has been happening?” area.
4. Considering the connections that were just established, the next step is to consider what additional patterns have led to this issue occurring.
5. If new patterns emerge that were not considered on the initial “Main issue” stage, the two lighter squares on the lower left side can be used to break them down into “who?”, “when?”, “how?”, “why?” and “where?”.
6. After all possible answers have been written on post-its and placed on the map, the group should take some time to look at the answers individually and look for connections.
7. Every member should share their observations.
8. Considering all these connections and observations, the team must try to identify why these patterns and conditions are occurring. Why are all the conditions that result in the identified pattern happening?
9. After all possible answers have been written on post-its and placed on the map, the group should take some time to look at the answers individually and look for connections.
10. Once again, each member should share their observations.
11. Individually, each member should write down what mindset, assumption, behavior or thinking they believe allows these conditions and patterns to exist. The community will also have provided some mindsets for the team to consider in their analysis.
12. Each member should share their observations, and group any answers that seems to be related.
13. Mindsets are at the base for a reason, they are the hardest to identify and change. As a team, identify what mindsets have the bigger effect on the system and determine what mindsets should be fostered to counteract them.
14. Locate the desired mindsets to the right of the “What thinking created it?” quadrant. This mindsets will be pulled again in the process.
15. The team should record their conclusions and whatever insights they uncovered that hadn’t been obvious to them before. They will come back to them in the next workshops. 

Future Glance Model

(Influenced by Woody Wade’s Scenario Planning Guide)

1. The use of this model starts with the team discussing the general factors that are currently affecting Puerto Rico (and the world in general) socially, technologically, environmentally, economically and politically.
2. After discussing the current events, the team should go to the first area and define 4 specific developments that could possibly and actually happen in 5 years that could have social effects. Overpopulation and smaller household size are examples of these types of factors.
3. Once the 4 elements are defined, the team should choose the 2 that could have the less predictable result and locate them in the quadrant. Now the team should discuss what the consequences of these two developments could be for Puerto Rico in general or for the main issue in discussion. These consequences should be placed below the causes on the same quadrant.
4. These discussions should be repeated for each category in the 5 year row and then repeated for the 10 year row.
5. With the 10 quadrants filled, the team should take time to individually reflect on the two factors that they personally feel will have the most important effect on the main issue. Each member should make a mark on the two sticky notes that they selected.
6. Once the whole team has voted, the 3 factors with the most votes and their consequences should be moved over to the “Most important factors to affect it” quadrant. If there are ties between different factors, discuss as a team until a conclusion can be reached on which to move forward.
7. Look back at the main issue, the 3 factors selected and their consequences. If all these factors actually happened, what would the implication on the issue be? Are these positive implications or negative? If they are negative, how could they be avoided? If they are positive, how could they be fostered?
8. Write the answers in sticky notes and place them on the “Most important implications” quadrant.
9. The team should record their conclusions and whatever insights they uncovered that hadn’t been obvious to them before. They will come back to them in the next workshops.

Path Identification Workshop

(Influenced by Synectics Creative-Problem-Solving Methodology)

1. In order to work on the Path Identification map, the team should have worked on the Iceberg Model and Future Glance Model since the content from those is needed for this one.
2. On the green section, the team should place the corresponding sticky notes from the other models. These should include the main issue, the reasons for it to be happening, the factors that may affect it in the future and the implications they might have.
3. Now, the team should go back to the conclusions they recorded from the two previous models and the insights they uncovered or hadn’t initially been obvious to them. Discuss why they hadn’t been evident, how they were able to identify them and how they relate to each other. With this in mind, go back to the sticky notes placed on the left side quadrant.
4. As a team, discuss and define an ideal future. What future should the team work towards that could have an effect on the main issue but also consider how future factors could affect it and the mindsets that need to be fostered. Come up with 4 ideal futures as a group and with 4 different ideal futures individually. Come together and discuss them.
5. Choose through whatever method you understand to be appropriate what the ideal future you want to work towards as a group is. Write it on a sticky note and place it on its quadrant in the map.
6. As a team, discuss what benefits this could bring to the community or Puerto Rico in general. List as many as you can.
7. Now, discuss what elements stand in the way of achieving your desired future. What barriers could limit its development? List as many as you can and pick the 4 strongest ones and place them on top of the rest. Keep the others there, so they can still be considered even if they are not the focus of the next steps.
8. As a team, list 4 specific actions that could be taken to overcome the obstacles and reach the benefits that the ideal future would bring. Individually, list 4 additional ones. Get together and discuss them. Group the ones that seems related, discuss the outliers and why they are outliers. Should they be considered or shouldn’t they?
9. Define 3 main actions that should be taken and list their sub-actions. This is where your business opportunity lies.
10. Define who should be in charge of each actions and how, when and why it should be tackled. Will this actions solve the main issue? Will they help the community? How can they be profitable for you as entrepreneurs?