learning & change

Collaborative Design Toolkit

What is human-centred change design?

Human-Centred Change Design is a collaborative approach where leaders bring stakeholders together and enable them to deliberately design solutions around their shared interests in the context of organisational change.

Why would we use human-centred change design principles?

Navigating the people side of change is a crucial aspect of every leader’s role. As the rate and complexity of change increase, leaders need to find new ways of supporting their teams through various professional and personal transitions, many of which are fraught with uncertainty and ambiguity.

Effective change leaders are deliberate in how they design the change experience for others. As most organisational change involves multiple stakeholder groups with conflicting priorities, it can be difficult to keep everyone engaged as the change unfolds. Human-centred change design allows diverse stakeholder groups to collaborate effectively and take the lead in solving complex, shared challenges.

How might we be more deliberately human-centred in our change design?

Our current context of complexity demands a different way of thinking about our leadership role. Gone are the days of being able to control all the variables and push our way through change with a commanding presence and clear consequences for people who don’t comply. 

Now we need to think about change differently. What if change leadership was less about convincing people to ‘get on board’ and more about listening and learning and then consciously designing things to reduce friction and make it easier and more worthwhile for people to move in the desired direction?

Use these mindsets to help you think like a designer and solve complex problems.

General Stages of Collaborative Design Activity

The Double-Diamond model shows various phases of design thinking and activity that leaders can use to help them organise their engagements and build shared understanding. 

Initially developed by the team at the UK Design Council as a way to standardise how they talk about their work, the concept has evolved into a practical tool with many uses. 

The first diamond has two stages, Discover and Define. These are associated with building a better understanding of the problem. The stages in the second diamond, Develop and Deliver, focus on finding solutions. The position in the diamond indicates whether a stage generally uses more divergent methods (exploring, broadening or generating) or more convergent ones (distilling, evaluating or narrowing).

Leaders can use the visual to map out a simple problem-solving approach, build stakeholder commitment around design thinking approaches or structure a collaborative design initiative to tackle a complex challenge.

Explore and Discover – Understand the issue by talking to those affected. Use interviews, observations and focus groups to build awareness and deepen empathy.

Empathise and Define – Gather your insights for Discovery and use them to help you redefine the challenge. Use methods like personas, empathy mapping and experience mapping to allow groups to distil their thoughts about the real problem.

Ideate and Prototype – Work collaboratively to generate ideas and build prototypes. Facilitate processes that allow diverse design groups to tap into their creativity to find novel solutions.

Test and Iterate – Test solutions on a small scale, reject some and improve the ones with the most promise. Use structured feedback processes to gather comments and questions from the people for whom you are designing. Use their feedback to iterate your designs.

Tips and Traps

Not every situation needs a double-diamond approach. Use the following descriptions to classify your situation and determine how best to apply the concept.

If you know the problem and how to solve it. Then don’t use double-diamond thinking. Plan your delivery using more linear tools and methods.

If you know the problem but not how to solve it. Focus on the second diamond of Develop and Deliver. Use methods to generate divergent ideas and prototypes to test and iterate.

If you don’t know the real problem but have a potential solution in mind. Focus on the first diamond of Discover and Define. Check your assumptions and better understand the context and driving factors involved.

If you don’t know the problem or how to solve it. Start by capturing an opportunity statement and then progress through both diamonds.

Method Bank

Here is a selection of facilitated activities leaders can use to support their collaborative design efforts. Click through to find out more, using the hyperlinks.

  1. Design principles – Use shared principles to build clarity and guide decision-making.
  2. Context mapping – Visualise the bigger picture and surface critical insights and opportunities.
  3. Discovery interviews Gather insights and build empathy for those involved in change design.
  4. Empathy mapping – Consolidate insights and build empathy for those involved in change design.
  5. Experience mapping Visualise the stakeholder experience to distil your design focus.
  6. Problem statements – Encourage collaborative, creative, action-orientated idea generation with ‘how might we statements’. 
  7. Napkin sketches – Quickly sketch ideas on napkins to visually communicate concepts and allow for iteration.
  8. Crazy 8s Generate 8 quick sketches in 8 minutes to promote creativity and encourage novel and divergent thinking. 
  9. Surface assumptions – Consciously surface assumptions about design feasibility, viability, and desirability.
  10. Standalone posters – Distil an idea into a clear and concise concept for prototyping using a standalone visual.
  11. Like, wish and wonder – Use the Like, Wish and Wonder feedback scaffold to gather comments and questions in an easy to analyse format.
  12. Systems Mapping Use Systems Mapping to unlock a deeper understanding of systems.

Here are some other resources to explore the model and related concepts in more depth.

To find out more about how to up skill your leaders in leading collaborative design or for support with your next codesign project, reach out to us via info@soji.com.au.

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