The Design Thinking techniques and exercises summarized here are covered in one or more of the hours of this book. Each technique and exercise is arranged alphabetically here (and further organized by hour in Appendix C).

2×2 Matrix Thinking This technique is used to help people and teams evaluate a number of options across two dimensions and four quadrants. Considering options in this way helps us uncover the best choice or the ideal path forward.

A/B Testing This technique is used to compare one alternative against another alternative, which can be easier or more useful than trying to explain why any one single alterative might fail to meet a person’s needs.

Active Listening In this technique, we show up, are present, listen like we are wrong, and learn. There’s arguably no better way to learn and empathize with one another than through listening to their experiences, stories, and unsolicited challenges and pain.

Adjacent Spaces Thinking As we change our goals and consider what might be next, consider how we can incrementally ease into the “white space,” or conceptual adjacent space, surrounding our current processes, methods, tools, and so on, with the idea that such change is more easily adopted or consumed because it is similar to what is currently in place. Said another way, use what we know today including our current strengths and capabilities to move into (or learn, or adopt) a new adjacent space. Such spaces could be technology-related, or reflect new business or application features, or new areas to master, new markets to dominate, new processes to better understand, and so on.

Affinity Clustering In this exercise popularized by the LUMA Institute, we organize data into themes, logical groups, or clusters of options to help make smarter choices and determine next best steps. Use Affinity Clustering with RTB and other prioritization or grouping exercises to naturally reduce some of the uncertainty or ambiguity surrounding complex situations.

Agile Practices These are the methodology, process, techniques, and other practices often used to operate in an iterative and collaborative way. They include practices and ceremonies that go well beyond this book but nonetheless often reflect a Design Thinking mindset, practices, techniques, and exercises. Consider how working in an Agile way means working in close collaboration with others to provide progressive and incremental value to end users.

Aligning People to Value Value realization is predicated on project or initiative team members who understand, respect, and hold themselves accountable for delivering value and other expected outcomes. This alignment between individual people and the outcomes they are expected and accountable to deliver is required for realizing value and therefore success.

Aligning Strategy to Time Horizons We need to think about today, the short term, the midterm, and the long term, recognizing that our long-term vision must be prioritized to be realized (which, in turn, means that our short-term vision needs to blend the new with the current). Popular research suggests that the mid-term Time Horizon can be the most important, as it is often overlooked yet integral to achieving the long term.

AntiFragile Validation Rooted in psychology and medicine, and popularized more recently by Nassim Taleb, this life hack is about recognizing our own stresses and struggles and how we’re growing stronger from them. Not just surviving or coping, but actually growing stronger, or the opposite of fragile. AntiFragile Validation seeks to confirm that we are converting the hard things of life into tools and experiences for newfound strength and increased abilities to adapt and overcome.

Avoiding the Abilene Paradox With this technique, we draw out people’s true wants and needs before making decisions that cost the group time and progress. When we are faced with taking a journey that is perhaps unnecessary, consider how to poll the group in a discreet or anonymous manner to validate their true wants and needs.

Backporting into the Past In this technique, we consider how current innovations can be “backported” into current processes or businesses or organizations to give them new life. Get to the future faster by building on what has already been built in a way that affords greater time-to-value at less cost and risk.

Backward Invention This technique involves stripping out features to simplify a design, prototype, or MVP (often reflecting features that our users do not want, find irritating, or simply do not need).

Balancing the Essential and the Accidental With regard to complexity of an idea, design, interface, or deliverable, it is important to understand the complexity that can be removed versus the complexity that is necessary, lest the idea, design, interface, prototype, MVP, or other deliverable or outcome lose its value. That is, we must find that thin vague line that separates the essential (required) from the accidental (optional or not required at all).

Bias Recognition and Validation This is the process of understanding in-place biases across an organization or team.

Big Picture Understanding This technique entails researching and understanding a number of environmental dimensions that start with a broad pursuit and drive deeper and deeper to better understand the macroeconomic environment and industry, the company or entity within its industry and environment, and finally the organization or business unit within the company or entity.

Billboard Design Thinking Created by Sean McGuire, this technique for organizing content, engaging stakeholders, driving discussions, and delivering Design Thinking workshops is based on the visual analogy of a billboard.

Black Box Illumination When we are faced with a “black box” of unknown processes or status, and we’ve lost confidence in the progress being made within that black box, we need to “shine a light” into the box lest people start making up stuff.

Boats and Anchors In this visual method of Reverse Brainstorming, the brainstorming participants assign problems, or anchors, to a situation, or boat, with the intention of identifying what will slow down the boat as it moves toward its destination. The exercise can be expanded to include sharks and rocks in the water, storms and hurricanes on the horizon, and so forth. After the initial exercise, “flip” the logic to consider how to eliminate or minimize the anchors or transform them into speed enablers.

Brainstorming In perhaps our most germinal ideation technique, we set the stage with others and frame a question or issue to be considered, prepare the team to “embrace a mindset of curiosity,” facilitate the brainstorming process through techniques such as a creative warm-up or guardrail for thinking, up-level for individual brainstorming, gather feedback, and share the resulting ideas.

Brainstorming in Reverse Instead of trying to answer a question or think about a problem head on, we reverse the question or problem and have the team consider what would make things worse. Afterward, “flip” the team’s answers to think through answering the original question/problem (similar to the Boats and Anchors exercise where users assign problems, or “anchors,” to a situation, or “boat”).

Buddy System Pairing In this practice, a new team member is paired with a veteran team member for a period of time (such as the first month the new team member is on the Program or Project) to help answer onboarding questions, provide background data, and allow the new team member the chance to ease into their new role, the team’s work climate, and the organization’s overall culture. Though team-internal, the Buddy System shares similarities with user Shadowing.

Building to Consider and Converge This technique involves engaging in freeform drawing, outlining, building, organizing, considering, or discussing, in any order and recursively as the need arises, to help us move from divergent thinking to convergent solutioning (and perhaps back and forth as we crystallize our problem solving around a potential solution).

Building to Think This technique employs the notion that we may do our best ideation and thinking, and therefore arrive at solutions faster, when we simply jump in and start building or “doing.” In contrast, for complex endeavors, “planning to think” takes more time and will push many of our learnings late into the solutioning or testing process where changes are expensive and ill-conceived designs must head back to the drawing board.

Bullseye Prioritization This exercise helps a team organize a broad set of options or choices across four areas (quadrants) and then allows for those options and choices to be prioritized against one another, given that only one choice for each quadrant can occupy the bullseye.

Buy a Feature This exercise, popularized by the LUMA Institute for creating consensus among a divided team, uses the concept of imaginary money that each team member assigns to their go-forward choice (such that each team member can “put their money where their mouth is” or “let the money do the talking”).

Co-Innovation In this technique, we develop solutions and deliverables together with users, partners, team members, or others in real time side by side, rather than going back and forth between iterative defining, ideating, prototyping, demonstrating and testing, ideating again, eventually building the solution or deliverable, and so on.

Collaboration This technique involves working with others to arrive at outcomes or execute in ways that would be difficult or impossible alone, with the understanding that no one does their best work, nor can difficult problems be solved, solo.

Concentric Communications This technique and exercise keeps all of the right people informed at the right time with the right set of information by visually organizing stakeholders into a set of concentric circles laid atop a grid. Each circle represents a priority and a cadence for communications, while the grid reflects a number of key communications channels.

Context Building and Mapping In this technique we physically or virtually travel to where a community works today, and passively watch and learn how they use their current product or service (or alternatively how they use our prototype or MVP).

Cover Story Mockup Developing the cover of a magazine, newspaper, or online news story a la the LUMA Institute’s Cover Story Mockup method is a powerful way to create alignment and generate excitement today for a day in the future when our products and services will finally become a part of others’ lives. This technique casts a vision that answers the question “What do we want people to say and think about our work when the day finally comes, and our work is available for others to use?”

Creating or Increasing a Shared Identity This is the process of finding or creating common threads or themes between people and teams; increasing Shared Identity is useful for creating and sustaining shared visions, driving stronger collaboration, and intentional culture shaping.

Culture Cube The Culture Cube reflects three dimensions: an organization’s or team’s environment, its work climate, and its work style. Use these dimensions to better understand an organization’s current-state culture.

Culture Snail for Pace of Change In this technique, we map how an organization’s or team’s culture has morphed and changed over time, a person and event at a time. The technique comes from the path a snail takes; like a snail, culture change is organic and alive, slow to move and change, and sometimes amorphous and messy.

Customer Journey Map This map is an illustration of the various touchpoints from beginning to end that together describe how a customer “flows” through their interaction with a product or service (Kelley & Kelley, 2013). Each touchpoint represents an opportunity to satisfy or disappoint a customer.

“Day in the Life of” Analysis This technique involves observing or recording the activities of a single representative user to understand the tasks and nature of their work. The more repetitive the work, the more immediately useful this DILO analysis; nonrepetitive edge cases typically represent only 10 to 20 percent of the typical day.

Demonstrations In this technique, we show mock-ups, prototypes, and other “demos” or ideas to others (team members and especially users) for the purpose of learning and course correcting and iterating.

Design Mindset This way of approaching a situation is centered around how something works. The Design Mindset is therefore a solution-focused rather than a problem-focused mindset, and as such requires a balance of cognitive analysis skills and imagination.

Design Thinking This technique is a “human-centered approach to innovation that draws from the designer’s toolkit to integrate the needs of people, the possibilities of technology, and the requirements for business success” (Brown, n.d.).

Divergent Thinking Rather than trying to find the “right” idea or answer to a problem, Divergent Thinking is about getting our mind prepared to creatively find many possible ideas and potential answers. We do this by using tips for getting into a divergent mindset, by applying different thinking and ideation techniques and exercises, and by challenging current thinking (or ideas or designs) as a way to explore the surrounding situation.

Diversity by Design In this technique, we build teams from the ground up with diversity in mind; consider how the availability and location of skills and capabilities, geographic and time zone implications, communications norms and human capabilities, and a myriad of cultural and other factors can aid or hinder creating balanced and diverse teams.

Edge Case Thinking While edge cases are, by definition, rare in that they occur at extremes or boundaries, thinking through inevitable edge cases early helps provides insights into users who think, do, and consume systems and solutions differently than the majority. Such insights help us create smarter designs and solutions in the long run, and they may help us build smarter solutions faster for everyone.

Empathy Immersion Empathy Immersion, or “Walk a mile in another’s shoes” as outlined by the LUMA Institute, takes empathy mapping to a deeper level as we personally “walk” another person’s journey and experience their joys, conflicts, and weariness along the way. Such immersion helps us feel and connect more deeply with another person and their needs.

Empathy Mapping This type of mapping is a process for learning about a specific Persona (a community or group of people who perform similar activities) by documenting how a user thinks and feels, what a user sees and hears or says and does, their biggest pain point, and their top one or two goals.

Empathy Through Realized Changes In Design Thinking, teams usually spend their time empathizing with users. In this case, however, we see users or other stakeholders empathizing with the team seeking to help the users or stakeholders; the empathy comes as a result of realized changes and seeing real progress (no matter how small that progress might be). Thus, empathy through realized changes flips the user/team source/target relationship and flow of empathy from team→users to users→team.

Experience Testing Through this technique, we gain early feedback from the very people who will presumably use our product or solution one day. As we expose them to our products and services, we need to encourage these users to vocalize their likes, dislikes, and what they might change. As Experience Testing is performed early, a portion of Structured Usability Testing performed later will naturally overlap and confirm any changes made in light of previous Experience Testing.

Failing Forward This important technique (and a type of Forcing Function) is used to force forward progress by removing the option of falling back in the wake of difficulties to a previous state or version. Also called Burning the Ships and Blowing the Bridges, Failing Forward forces us to fight for progress rather than give up and return to the old and presumably insufficient status quo.

Feedback Loop In one of the fundamentals of Design Thinking, the idea is to create and employ feedback loops as ways to learn and apply those learnings back into the initial problem, an idea, a design, a prototype, a test, and more.

Five Whys This important method is used for discovering the root cause or reasons behind a particular situation, line of thinking, decision, and other matters. This technique helps us understand user motivations, values, and biases as well. Ask “why” again and again to go beyond the obvious and explore the hidden.

Fixing Broken Windows Before we can make progress, we might need to first slow down and fix the “broken windows” surrounding our teams and our users. Based on criminology and social theory, the broken windows theory states that visible signs of unresolved neglect or bad behavior promote greater neglect and even worse behavior.

Force Field Analysis Created by Kurt Lewin in the 1940s as a tool for the social sciences, a Force Field Analysis, or FFA, helps us visualize a situation and the pressure for and against changing that situation.

Forcing Functions This technique involves using upcoming events or scheduling and calendaring to create very real or completely artificial deadlines for driving progress.

Fractal Thinking This form of vertical thinking is based on recognizing and using the relationship between the small and the large to learn and think differently. Consider how small team behaviors and practices are reflected or echoed upward into businesses and industries, and how the trends and themes we see at a country level are reflected downward into our economies, industries, businesses, and teams.

Framing Governance for Collaboration This technique is based on overlaying a virtual governance or oversight structure atop our broad collection of teams and stakeholders. Through this virtual structure, Framing Governance for Collaboration specifies the organizational bodies necessary for overseeing and completing complex endeavors.

Gamification In this technique, we build game design techniques such as badges and rewards into a prototype, pilot, solution, testing, or training to drive deeper or earlier engagement, incentivize new behaviors, and collect richer feedback.

Golden Ratio Analysis Using the ratio 1.6:1.0 found in the Fibonacci Sequence, we can turn to the Golden Ratio to explain why a design, product, user interface, or situation does not look or feel right.

Good Enough Thinking This is the notion that going beyond a design’s, deliverable’s, or solution’s requirements is not only unnecessary but incredibly expensive from a diminishing returns perspective; increasing a deliverable’s quality from 95 to 96 percent might double its cost or time-to-value, for example. Common practices (rather than best practices) are often executed to deliver “good enough” outcomes or other results.

Growth Mindset This technique is about operating and thinking in a way that acknowledges learning requires trying and doing and also failing, and that failing is an important step on the journey to achievement. A growth mindset is incomplete without the ability to extend grace to others who are also learning and occasionally failing on their own knowledge journeys.

Guardrails for Thinking Guardrails are synonymous with any of the many ways of thinking outlined here that help us ideate differently and therefore focus our thinking in new ways.

Guiding Principles In this technique, we establish a lightweight set of foundational beliefs, rules, or behaviors that describe and explain “how” an organization or team should operate.

Heatmapping This is the process of creating heatmaps or visualizations of data or concepts to simplify a complex landscape. Heatmaps depend on the use of color (such as red, yellow, green) or other identifying marks (for accessibility and inclusive design purposes) to highlight attention areas. The variety and gradation of color or other markings help illustrate status or changes, for example, and therefore draw attention to those changes.

“How Might We?” Questioning This Socratic-inspired Design Thinking staple creates an inclusive, optimistic, and safe place for team ideation, team problem solving, collaboration, and teamwork. HMW Questioning implies that many solutions are possible, and that the team will tackle a problem or situation together, as a team.

Ideate This is the general process or mindset for thinking, imagining, learning, and ultimately identifying potential answers to questions. Ideation can be performed singularly or as part of a broader collaboration. Common ideation techniques include Brainstorming, Reverse Brainstorming, Good Enough Thinking, Visual Thinking, and Modular Thinking.

Inclusive Communications This technique underpins healthy cross-teaming in that it helps ensure we include and listen to the whole of our teams, regardless of abilities, believing that each person has a voice, ideas, and thoughts worth surfacing and considering.

Inclusive and Accessible Thinking In this technique, we consider user community abilities, challenges, culture, values, lifestyles, and preferences; we allow this knowledge to influence with whom we empathize and how and what we design and deliver. Compare this to Edge Case Thinking where the focus is on identifying and delivering the capabilities required versus how those capabilities are accessed.

Instrumenting for Continuous Feedback Also known as creating a closed-loop or feedback control system, this technique is about building feedback mechanisms into our technology and/or our system’s functionality so we and our systems learn over time and make smarter user experience-based or satisfaction-based decisions.

Inverse Power Law In this technique, we consider the distribution of changes (small, medium, and large) in terms of how they can be accommodated by a community and in a schedule. A community may be able to absorb a high number of little changes, but fewer numbers of medium changes, and only very few major changes (just as we observe in biology and nature in terms of earthquake and hurricane frequencies and sizes). If the frequency of our planned changes fails to map well to the Inverse Power Law, it is likely we are taking on too much change at once (which might be necessary but should then influence how we plan, think, prepare, execute, or otherwise operate in light of the number and size of these changes).

Iterating Perhaps the greatest value found in Design Thinking is to build on, refine, or otherwise iterate on something already built. The process of iterating takes our idea, prototype, solution, or understanding to another level of capability or usability.

Lessons Learned This technique is a form of Looking Back and a core Design Thinking method for surfacing learnings and feedback to be injected into future work. To be of use, learnings and knowledge must be captured regularly rather than exclusively at the end of a project or initiative.

Making Ideas Visible and Visual The best way to get what is trapped in our heads out of our heads is to do so visually. Do so by creating and together refining pictures, figures, charts, models, and so on to help us create a shared understanding between our team members and others we might invite to help us think through and solve problems.

Mesh Networking Also called Archipelago Networking, as in connecting islands of people and teams, Mesh Networking is about the caring and feeding of teams through intentional connections and a mesh of informal and formal communications. Through an overlay of these connections, we can increase belonging, community, social capital, and social cohesion across our teams, which in turn will positively affect the team’s culture and work climate.

Mind Mapping This common technique is used across business and elsewhere to brainstorm, think, drive clarity, and eventually create a shared understanding of a problem or idea. Created by Tony Buzan in the 1970s, the resulting Mind Map from a Mind Mapping exercise gives us a visual representation as we explore and better understand a central problem or idea by linking a second tier of other ideas or attributes or dependencies to it, followed by linking additional ideas to the second tier, and so on. As we branch out from the central idea, the mind map reveals a hierarchy or set of dependencies and other considerations illuminating that central idea. Mind maps are useful to better understand ideas, concepts, problems, prototype features, potential solution challenges, stakeholder relationships, deliverables structure, and required content.

Minimum Viable Product (MVP) Thinking In this technique, we engage in thought to understand the minimum level of functionality or capability that delivers value to users, with the understanding that such an MVP must continue evolving through additional iterations to become the full-fledged solution envisioned or required by a community in the first place. MVP Thinking helps us determine next best steps. This technique is also referred to as “seed thinking,” in the sense that an MVP, like a seed, grows into much more as it is nurtured and cared for.

Möbius Ideation In this technique, we maximize our resources by rethinking or reassembling our resources to maximize their usefulness. Consider how a Möbius strip can be fully used, front and back, to provide potentially twice the value we might otherwise realize.

Mocking Up This is the practice of creating a lightweight prototype of a conceptual solution or design created for experimentation and visualization purposes. Mockups are often simple drawings or arrangements of diagrams and pictures, or a partial replica of a larger whole, created for our purposes here using commonly available tools such as a physical or virtual whiteboard or a tool such as Klaxoon, Figma, PowerPoint, and others.

Modular Thinking and Building Whether a design, prototype, plan, organizational structure, or career, the idea is to build and think in terms of modules that can be incrementally added or recombined with other modules to create new capabilities, artifacts, or value.

Next Best Step Thinking When faced with uncertainty, in this technique we consider how to ascertain the next single best step versus trying to map out the entirety of a full journey or plan.

Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) These are essential to the Progress Mindset, where we execute to deliver value. OKRs connect a project’s or initiative’s strategic goals with the day-to-day activities executed by a delivery team to achieve those goals. OKRs therefore reflect a goal-setting or value-focused framework designed to connect strategic goals set by a community with the activities that others execute to deliver those goals. With the completion of goals comes value; the two become synonymous. OKRs therefore also create clarity around what value looks like and how we know we have achieved it.

Pattern This is a high-level blueprint or design useful as a guide for future work; the conceptual version of a (standardized or other) template.

Persona Profiling This long-time exercise is used to create abstracted fictional characters (such as “finance user,” “sales user,” PMO users, specific document or artifact users, and other such amalgamations) who represent types or subsets of a real user community. Each persona profile shares common needs and uses specific artifacts or features of a solution or deliverable in similar ways.

Piloting The idea is to put forth an early version of a solution for (typically) a subset of users to utilize for feedback purposes as well as productive use; pilots are more functionally complete than prototypes.

Possible Futures Thinking Based on the Futures Wheel created by Jerome C. Glenn in 1971, through this exercise we visually model different versions of the future based on current-day trends or events and the possible consequences of those trends or events using a wheel analogy and the acronym STEEP (Social, Technology, Economic, Environmental, and Political).

Postmortem A form of Looking Back, this practice involves looking back in time to examine and dissect how a situation or problem arose, progressed, and concluded; sometimes synonymous with lessons learned though the postmortem connotation typically implies a one-time examination at the end of a project or initiative.

Power/Interest Grid This visual prioritization exercise forces us to map the power (or influence) and interest that each stakeholder holds in our IT project or initiative as a way to determine who holds the most power or influence over decision-making, who has the highest interest in our work and therefore needs to be kept informed, who needs to simply be kept satisfied, and who only needs to be monitored.

Premortem The “pre” version of a postmortem or backbrief, this exercise is performed to purposely think ahead about what might fail or occur and why, before such failures occur. Premortems include building in mitigations or additional user involvement to avoid these failure scenarios. Premortems can help us identify and subsequently avoid the kind of fantastic failures that otherwise surprise and shut down projects and initiatives while also helping us see biases at work (that is, confirmation bias or group think).

Probing for (Better) Understanding This technique involves investigating and asking questions of users and others that cannot be answered without some thought. The goal of Probing is to bring clarity to a situation (whether current or potential) to avoid mistakes that have been made before and to find a way through the ambiguity ahead of us. Probing questions must also go beyond those questions that only clarify, though, and seek to understand the edges through open-ended “Why?” and similar lines of questioning.

Problem Framing Based on the work performed by Getzels and Csikszentmihalyi regarding the need to understand problems as a precursor to creativity, a Problem Framing exercise provides context and helps us understand and prioritize a particular problem over a set of other potential problems. Problem Framing also gives us the seeds for creating a definitive problem statement.

Problem Stating This is the process or exercise of turning a potential problem into a problem statement, which, in turn, provides a crisp and shared understanding of the problem to help a team rally around what is needed to solve that problem.

Problem Tree Analysis Based on Paulo Freire’s work in education in the early 1970s, this exercise helps us to separate the causes of a problem from the effects or implications of that problem. This simple method is based on a tree metaphor. Draw the trunk to represent the problem, the roots below to represent root causes, and the branches above to capture the effects and other outcomes stemming from that problem.

Process Flows Useful in prototyping, process flows provide clarity through visualizing how a sequence of events unfolds. Explore and experiment with the flow of data through a proposed system to understand where the data is housed, how it is surfaced, where it is used as an input and an output, its dependencies, and more. Process flows made visual through drawings and schematics help us drive discussions and close the gaps in our prototypes.

Proof of Concept This limited prototype or exercise is used to demonstrate that a particular approach, capability, or feature set is directionally aligned with user needs. A Proof of Concept exercise demonstrates feasibility.

Prototyping This is the process of “building to think” by creating a solution (or partial solution) to a problem that may then be shared with users, tested, and iteratively refined (or tossed out); the idea is to learn fast, fail fast, iterate, and therefore make meaningful progress while learning and failing cheaply.

Rapid or “Rough and Ready” Prototyping This is the process of quickly putting together a visualization of a potential solution to determine if the prototype is directionally accurate. Examples could be as simple as a whiteboard diagram, animated PowerPoint, or software-based wireframe.

Reducing Cognitive Load This technique is about recognizing and reducing the extraneous load we place on ourselves and others when we fail to stop thinking and start doing. After a period of thinking and ideation, we may need to find ways to focus afresh and kick-start execution.

Release Planning The process involves identifying, prioritizing, and selecting the high-level capabilities and user stories (needs) to be reflected in our solution, built over a period of time, and delivered at the conclusion of that time in the form of a time-boxed “release.”

Retrospective This technique is a form of Looking Back, where, at the conclusion of a sprint or release, we discuss what the team accomplished and what still remains to be accomplished. We also think about why work isn’t moving fast enough and in other cases why we have achieved a reasonable velocity. We consider the difference makers, and we discuss how we can repeat the good, improve the bad, and totally eliminate the ugly.

Rose, Thorn, Bud (RTB) Exercise This exercise, popularized by the LUMA Institute, is used for exploring an option or choice by organizing the positive, the negative, and the opportunities associated with the option or choice. Roses are those aspects of an option or choice that are positive, healthy, or working well. Thorns are those outcomes or consequences that are not healthy or positive. Finally, buds are areas of potential insights or opportunities for improvement. Note that buds are often the difference makers in choosing one option over another.

Rough and Ready Prototyping A long-time method popularized more recently by the LUMA Institute, this umbrella technique for “thinking with our hands” is used to quickly create low-cost models and designs. The sooner we can put something tangible in front of our prospective user community, the faster we can obtain useful feedback. Such prototypes help us validate if we are directionally correct in our thinking and designing. Examples of rough and ready prototyping include creating mockups, wireframes, sketches, and inexpensive three-dimensional models.

Running the Swamp This time pressure exercise is intended to help us think fast to generate the kinds of fantastically exacting ideas necessary to survive or escape a terrible situation.

Sacrificing the Calf This technique is a way to work through the tired old ideas or solutions floating in our heads by taking those dead-end ideas off the table and calling them what they are for us at this particular time and with this particular problem: dead. This untimely death serves as a Forcing Function for trying new ideas or learning new skills.

Scaling by Fives This technique involves sizing the most productive teams using the optimal team size of five, which has been shown through research and vast experience to represent the number of people who can connect and work most effectively together.

SCAMPER Ideation Using this stepwise method and acronym, we can improve a team’s brainstorming ability using the following keywords in a “How Might We?” structure to consider a problem of situation in terms of (S) how might we substitute…?, (C) how might we combine…?, (A) how might we adapt…?, (M) how might we modify or magnify…?, (P) how might we repurpose or put to another use…?, (E) how might we eliminate or minimize…?, and finally (R) how might we reverse or rearrange?

Service Reliability Engineering (SRE) This technique comprises the engineering, technical, and change control methodologies and procedures necessary to manage the reliability of a system and resolve reliability operations and infrastructure issues (often in an automated or self-healing kind of way). Synonymous with a culture or mindset of service reliability, service reliability engineers work to automate what can be responsibly automated as a way to avoid manually introduced issues.

Silent Design In this technique, we learn and gather feedback by observing the changes that users (not designers!) make to a product, service, or solution to increase its effectiveness or usability after it has been deployed.

Simple Rules This set of six or fewer Rules describe who and what you are as a team or organization; they may include what you do and don’t do, outputs, priorities, boundaries; stop and start parameters, and more.

Shadowing This is the process of following or working side by side with a user or another person to either understand or learn their work first-hand. Shadowing can be extended (and made much more repeatable) by recording standard processes or step-by-step instructions.

Shortcut or Wormhole Thinking This technique is about finding not-so-obvious shortcuts between where we are today and where we need to go. The key lies in two areas: navigating everything between us and our destination without allowing ourselves to get caught up in the detours and side routes, and fundamentally changing the playing field to find a shorter route. The straight lines and obvious paths aren’t necessarily the best paths for our specific situation.

Slay the Hero This technique is a long-time staple of disaster recovery planning and exercises. The idea is both simple and brilliant, and for our purposes akin to “human prototyping and testing.” We use Slay the Hero to test our systems and processes for human resiliency.

Smart IP Reuse In this technique, we use templates, previous deliverables, accelerators, and other IP to help us start faster or move with greater velocity.

Smart Multitasking This technique builds on the classic multitasking method where we perform two or more tasks simultaneously in several ways: Do the thing that gives us the most energy at the time, and then move on to the next thing that gives us the most energy; make progress on the big rocks (the most important items) early so we still have time and energy to get these done at all; and use Time Boxing and Forcing Functions when the tasks to complete fail to give us the natural energy to get them done.

Snaking the Drain This lightweight discussion technique or exercise is used to reset our minds when the old solutions or quick fixes tend to creep back into our heads, holding us back from thinking differently. With little emotion, talk through the old way of doing things. Discuss its advantages and disadvantages one final time, and either adopt the old solution or rule it out so we can restart our thinking with a clean slate. Snake the Drain to refresh, reset, and rethink.

Solution Interviewing After we conclude traditional User Acceptance Testing, we confirm our product or solution is truly “accepted” using Solution Interviewing, which builds on the static pass/fail results and dry results obtained through UAT. Solution Interviewing gives us the rich feedback we need to make smart updates to our products and solutions even if they have been “accepted” for the time being.

Stakeholder Mapping This is the process of creating a visual or graphic representation of the stakeholder register, including specific people, roles, and groups that have a stake or interest in Program/Project outcomes. The map and register are organized around users, sponsors, leaders, partners, and the various teams required to design, develop, test, deploy, and operate a solution or product, and they include contact information, engagement dates, assessments of power and influence, and classifications and interests of each stakeholder. Maps and registers are not precisely interchangeable, but they both reflect similar data.

Stakeholder+ Mapping This exercise adds a useful Design Thinking element to a traditional stakeholder map by including thought bubbles and speech bubbles to each stakeholder identified on the map. Thought bubbles reflect what we believe each stakeholder is thinking, and speech bubbles reflect what each stakeholder is telling us or sharing with others.

Stakeholder Sentiment Mapping In this technique, we apply color or icons to a traditional stakeholder map to visually communicate, or “visualize,” stakeholder sentiment. The RAG (red, amber, green) method for color-coding is common, where unsatisfied stakeholders are coded red, neutral are coded amber or yellow, and satisfied stakeholders are coded green. In cases where color differentiation is impractical for accessibility or other reasons, use happy/neutral/unhappy emojis to communicate status.

Storytelling This communication and change management method yields emotionally sticky and memorable outcomes by uniting the right (creative) side of the brain with the left (logic) side. Stories help messages resonate in ways that other communications mediums cannot. Good stories educate and change people and their attitudes, biases, and thinking, ultimately influencing work climate and culture.

Structured Text In this technique, we use words rather than pictures; this technique considers how formatting, physical placement, margins and other whitespace, and text highlighting and color are used to drive consumability and elicit meaning.

Structured Usability Testing This technique is used to test and validate our prototypes early on with our users by creating and using a uniform and repeatable environment for this testing, including sharing with each user the test’s purpose and goals across a sequenced set of test cases or scenarios to execute.

Subtraction Game This hyper-focused timed exercise reflects a combination of Divergent Thinking and Brainstorming. It comprises three timed steps spanning 10 minutes, with a follow-on 10 minutes earmarked afterward for sharing and discussing what to eliminate and how to do so.

Supervillain Monologuing This technique is used for engaging and learning from others by encouraging people with knowledge of our situation and the landscape to monologue about their perspectives—like an evil supervillain! Lead them where they want to go, get them to talk, and then simply listen and learn.

Taxonomy Kick-starters When our minds are too tired or too cluttered to think in new ways, we use the structure of a common taxonomy to kick-start our thinking processes and reinvigorate our creativity. Examples include SCAMPER’s 7-step process for brainstorming, the Agile Manifesto’s 4 values and 12 principles, Heuristic Analysis and its 10 usability heuristics, the STEED acronym used in Possible Futures exercises to help us think across 5 or more dimensions, a standard Risk Register, the AEIOU mnemonic for problem validation, and so on.

The Rule of Threes A prototype, new design, solution, deliverable, or other work product is rarely successful out of the gate; set expectations that it often takes three iterations to meet minimum requirements.

Time Boxing This simple Agile technique for time management was developed by James Martin. The idea is to create a “box” of time in which to complete a task or body of work. The box serves as a deadline and provides healthy tension that drives a sense of urgency and Good Enough Thinking.

Time Pacing Businesses, processes, nature, and more exhibit rhythms in how they naturally unfold. In this technique, we strive to understand the peaks and valleys of these existing rhythms to thoughtfully structure other activities in and around them to create the most effective schedule or strategy.

Trend Analysis This technique is used to assess the broader environment rooted in observation, research, and analysis. It is usually associated with end user and user community trends, but can be applied more broadly to teams, business units, companies, industries, and other sources. Trend Analysis requires collecting and analyzing data from the source in question to determine if there is a correlation or relationship present in the data over time. We might assess similarities and differences based on groups of users or other sources and correlate these similarities or differences (deltas) based on the time or day (or week, month, or season), geography, industry, organization, education, language, age, gender, effectiveness, performance, number of errors, choices offered, default decisions made, and so on. Use Trend Analysis to draw high-level conclusions about a situation’s big picture, an organization’s culture, and a team’s work climate and biases.

User-Centric (or User-Centered or Human-Centered) Thinking This general term is synonymous with Design Thinking, where understanding the needs of a user or user community in the context of a specific environment, situation, and problem drives empathy and ultimately better problem definition and solutioning.

User Story Mapping In this technique, a process or recipe is used to bring together the steps necessary to deliver a user story, from identifying goals and user journey to solutioning, organizing work into time boxes or sprints, and publishing a release plan.

User Story Sizing In this technique, we use story points, T-shirt sizing, or similar estimation approaches to estimate the time and effort or development capacity necessary to create a feature or process.

Visual Thinking When we turn our ideas and plans and solutions into pictures and figures, thus making them visible and visual, we arrive at a shared understanding more quickly. Visual thinking is about transforming the shapeless and invisible thoughts in our heads into figures and maps and images that help us understand and think, which in turn allows us to communicate and collaborate with others.

“Wakanda Forever!” This technique is used for connecting an individual to a team or organization with a legacy of purpose and achievement. Doing so can help motivate an individual to deliver at a higher level of performance than they would have been capable of delivering solo.

“What, So What, Now What?” This game-based exercise helps us learn enough to break free of indecision. The idea is to work through a recent event and view it through the questions and lenses of “What?” “So what?” and “Now what?” This exercise opens the door to determining the next best step while having healthy conversations about how to effectively tackle similar situations in the future.

Wireframing This is the process of illustrating a process, flow, interface, or view (typically in the context of a user interface). A good wireframe focuses on functionality and accessibility through a well-designed layout and intuitive navigation. Wireframes serve as the basis for prototyping.

Worst and Best Ideation This lighthearted thinking-in-reverse exercise is useful with people and groups who are unfamiliar with one another and may be uncomfortable thinking so “differently.” The Worst and Best exercise is drawn from the Worst Possible Idea method shared by Interaction-Design.org. Instead of putting people on the spot to solve a problem, each participant is given a situation or problem and simply asked to answer what would make this situation or problem even worse. Afterward we can “flip” this answer like we do with Reverse Brainstorming to generate a potential solution worth considering.