Scoping is about defining the right challenge and addressing the real problem of the customer

without anticipating the solution. The goal is also to get a common understanding of the
challenge/problem together with the client and among the Design Thinking team. There are
various techniques, like charetting and brain dump, which support this phase. At the end of a
project the developed ideas and concepts will be measured against the previously defined
challenge. Make sure you understand it right and rephrase if necessary.
Defining the challenge is a very important step.
• The phrasing of the challenge significantly determines the potential solution space.
• Finding the right balance between too open and too close phrasing is key.
• It is crucial to ensure a common understanding of the challenge within the design team and
with all stakeholders. Never consider this as a given!
• There are techniques like Charetting, which help to reframe and narrow down a design
challenge.
Origins of the term “Charrette”:
Thought to originate from the Ècole des Beaux-Arts in Paris in the 19th century, the word
charrette is from the French for “cart" or “chariot". It was not unusual for student architects to
continue working furiously in teams at the end of the allotted term, up until a deadline, when a
charrette would be wheeled among the students to pick up their work for review while they,
each working furiously to apply the finishing touches, were said to be working en charrette, in
the cart.
360° Research is about research, discover, explore and capture data.
• The goal is to find data that serve to inspire the team and gain empathy for the user and
involved people, so that their voices can be represented when
design decisions are made.
• Keep in mind, this phase consists of diverging activities, -no conclusions yet.
• There are various techniques, which support this phase, most prominently interview
techniques and video studies.
• Interviews can be of different formats:
• On site interviews (face to face)
• Phone interviews
• Interviews are also possible with workshop participants (participatory workshop).
• Observe the users :
• To discover workarounds that they are performing
• To Learn their state of mind
• To understand the context of the problem from the user point of view
During research it is important to focus not only on „mainstream“ users.
• In many cases, so called „extreme users“ provide the most interesting insights for a
challenge.
• Including “extreme users” ensures a diverse set of users within field research.
• Again, this can feel strange sometimes, but creation of empathy should never be limited to
people, which appear convenient to the researcher.
To synthesize the wall of reseach data, the creation of composite characters, called
“Personas” is very helpful.
• Personas are fictional characters created to represent user types.
• They are useful in considering the goals, desires, and limitations of the users to help to guide
design decisions.
• Personas put a personal human face on otherwise abstract data about users.
Depending on the design challenge, „a day in the life“ is another powerful tool to further
synthesize research results and put your persona into a context.
• The description of a typical day in the life of a persona can also be a perfect starting point for
creation of ideas in the later ideation phase (e.g. which steps of
the day could be improved by using certain technologies?).

A similar technique, than the “day in the life”, is the so called Customer Journey Map.
• The Customer Journey Map is a tool to explore the journey an end-user goes through in the
context of a particular business scenario.
• It supports you in finding the human meaning of solutions by uncovering unknown pain
points and needs.
• A journey map workshop often creates a safe environment that enables people to have
conversations with each other they hadn’t had before and explore choices they didn’t know
where possible.
• Please note that a Customer Journey Map is not just a process description.
Process Map Linear:
Is a derivation of the “day in the life…“ or “Customer journey map“ technique. It shows
activities, environment, tools, involved roles in a time dependent sequence.
• Geographic Map:
Focuses on different locations and their interconnection (e.g. like a subway map). You can use
it as a support for process modeling or architecture modeling where multiple locations play a
role.
• Floor plan:
Often used for example to understand/define a customer experience in a physical location.
Ever wondered why most stores force you to go anti-clockwise? Obviously humans tend to
look to the right, so by using a anticlockwise store setup shoppers will probably look at more
stuff as this relates to more shelf-space.
• Stakeholder Map:
Use to understand and capture the interconnection between LoBs and relevant stakeholders
for a specific topic.
• Venn diagram:
Used to determine the overlapping area between business viability, technological feasibility
and desirability for the people.
• Causal Map:
Shows interdependency between actions, e.g. More hours at the computer, more coffee
needed, less hours of sleep
• Concept Map:
Showing direct and indirect interdependencies between things (people, concepts, etc….).
• 2-by-2 Axis Map:
There is 1000s of these maps. Basically they help to assign data points to two different
variables (e.g. talking about different roles of an organization you can use it for “amount of
travelling” and “numbers of employees with this role” to determine whether mobile scenarios
make sense for these people.
Ideation is about brainstorming ideas.
• At this point the team starts to imagine possibilities.
• The goal is to generate as many ideas as possible.
• Do not check for feasibility and viability at the beginning of ideation, this is done later during
prioritization.
• Brainstorming techniques are very typical for this phase.
• At the end of this phase, one or several ideas have to be identified, which should be realized
and validated as (low-fi) prototypes.
• Typically prioritization of ideas is done, by considering also the business viability and the
technical feasibility of ideas.
A Customer Journey Map can not only be used to synthesize pain points and needs. It is also
a very powerful ideation technique.
A business model canvas represents a business model or business case with nine simple
building blocks, including customer segments, channels, and relationships; value proposition,
key activities, resources and partners; cost structure and
revenue streams.
• The canvas therefore combines the economical viability of a solution with its desirability and
feasibility.
• It can be used for ideation of new business models or any other challenge related to entities
with a business like working model.
• The canvas is also extremely helpful to identify business opportunities driven by new
technologies (e.g. „What does Big Data mean for my business?“)
Prototyping is the first step to actually feel an idea.
• The goal is to develop quick prototypes in order to create a first user experience of how the
idea might feel, look like and work like (remember Steve Jobs!).
• The key purpose of a prototype is validation with users.
• There are may approaches to build a prototype. At the end it has to be any materialization of
the solution, which can be validated with users.
There are various techniques for prototyping.
• Use a role play to show the impact of your solution e.g. in the “day in the life of“ your
persona.
• Don‘t try to be too perfect. “Feeling the idea is key, not perfect make up“.
• Other Prototyping techniques:
• Low Fidelity Mock-up - Demonstrate Functionality, Look & Feel of your Solution by
composing low fidelity mockups using traditional material. Don‘t try to be too perfect. “Key
functionality and screen flow
is key, rather than finalized screenshots.“
• Within the Design Thinking community, there are various types of prototypes established,
which can be used to evolve initial prototypes further:
 Critical Function Prototype
 Dark Horse Prototype
 Funky Prototype
 Functional Prototype
• Validation is about gathering feedback on concepts and prototypes. Make sure the
presentation of the prototype is mind setting and full of emotion in order to check on
feasibility, viability and desirability with the stakeholders and users. Apply activities, tools
and techniques from the previous phases to iterate.
• There are some key principles how to run validation (as outlined in the slide). One of the
key mistakes, which can occur during validation is defending or trying to sell the prototype
to the user.
• Therefore the Design Thinking team should present emotional and mind setting, but
internally they should keep a certain emotional distance to their prototype and remain open
for feedback.
• Of course Design Thinking stands not alone in the world of methodologies.
• It does not replace other methodologies like ASAP (Standard SAP Implementation
Method), EAF (Enterprise Architecture Framework), PMI (Project Management Standard)
and so on.
• Instead, Design Thinking complements the existing methodology toolbox.
• Looking at business process related IT projects, an important field of application is the early
phase of the project life cycle (Solution Innovation and Discovery), where generation of new
ideas is in the foreground.
• During software implementation, recommended fields of application are the Project
Preparation (Scoping) and the Blueprinting phase, where Design Thinking helps to frame
the scope, identify pain points and define user requirements very efficiently.
• But, this is just a rough sort-in attempt. As already pointed out, Design Thinking techniques
can be applied, whenever there is a need for creative problem solving.