Round Robin
Use a round robin exercise as a quick and efficient way to get rapid feedback on a given idea or solution. Use it with your teammates to gain new perspectives and consider different approaches. The round robin exercise starts with a series of ideas, problems, or solutions that need to be examined or ideated on further
Journey Mapping
A journey map is a tool that we can use inside of our businesses to deeply look at our services and our experiences. We can even use it when thinking about our products from the point of view of our key users. A journey map is a model for a specific user's journey. Multiple populations will result in multiple journey maps.
Creating a Problem Statement
Creating a Problem Statement Creating a problem statement (also known as asking 5 why's) allows you to evolve and think deeply about the root cause of a given problem or issue you are facing. The root cause is the problem that starts all the other problems. Solving for the root cause allows you to prevent other issues from cascading.
Abstraction Ladder
An abstraction ladder is a great framework to guide thinking as it helps us put problems in context. You can use an abstraction ladder when you’re trying to figure out where to start with a big problem, or use it with more narrow problems to try and figure out how to gain more traction.
The 20-10-10 Exercise
The 20-10-10 Exercise: How Leaders Prioritize Their Lives. The 20-10-10 exercise prompts critical and actionable thinking under the umbrella of continuous personal development and tells you, beyond intuition or bias, what you are organically motivated to put time, energy, or resources in to.
Intro to Miro
Miro is a digital whiteboard used to collaborate with our teams. Explore Miro at your own pace to create projects, boards, or frames. Learn the basic mechanics through our icebreakers template and invite your team to jump in! You can use the Strategic Design Kit hub to explore different Miro templates and use them however you like!
Stakeholder Mapping
Unlock Project Success with the Ultimate Guide to Stakeholder Mapping. Learn how to create a powerful stakeholder map that visualizes and organizes all project participants, enabling collaboration and success. Discover key steps, best practices, and effective stakeholder management techniques in this comprehensive guide.
Stakeholder Map
A stakeholder map is an organizational tool to figure out who's involved with a service or product, whether they are providing, creating, or sourcing anything along the entire chain of delivering a service. It helps you to determine the most important, key figures involved with your product, service, or idea and examine them closely.
Pilot Poster
Discover the secret weapon for perfecting your project before it even takes off. A pilot poster is your key to gathering early feedback, ironing out potential issues, and ensuring your vision becomes a reality. Learn how to create your own pilot poster, navigate concept scoping and milestone planning, and watch your idea soar to new heights.
Storyboard
Learn how storyboards bridge the gap between abstract ideas and implementation, enhance collaboration, and accelerate the development of impactful solutions. Follow our guide to creating effective storyboards and download our free storyboard worksheet to get started today. Elevate your user stories, foster empathy, and better understand user behavior with storyboards.
Personas
Personas are a summarization of common or overlapping attributes in a given audience or population. Being able to identify your brand’s possible personas is crucial when trying to make design decisions. You can use this Personas template as an empathy building tool, allowing you to connect with your user and determine their wants and needs.
Creative Matrix
The creative matrix is an immediate go-to when you need to understand how to rapidly ideate new possible solutions, improvements to a service or product, or anything in-between. This exercise helps us to diverge from the current way of thinking by making solution generation fun and insightful.
Hopes and Fears
The hopes and fears template helps us explore the power of vulnerability. It works to expose different challenges, opportunities, and feelings early on. Oftentimes, unleashing someone's purpose and passion in a safe space can be transformative. The anxiety you have can actually be a big accelerator!
Hopes and Fears
Discover the secret to successful projects with the Hopes and Fears activity! Uncover the aspirations and concerns of your stakeholders using a step-by-step guide. Download our free worksheet to ensure everyone's voices are heard and pave the way for a triumphant project or initiative. Let their hopes become reality and conquer their fears together!
What's on your radar?
What's On Your Radar is a way to understand the landscape of a given stakeholder and determine what is most important to them. This exercise is one of the earliest sensing tools you can use to describe and organize what is on the purview of any stakeholder, whether primary, secondary or even tertiary.
What's on your radar
Unveil hidden insights, prioritize effectively, and foster meaningful discussions with the "What's on Your Radar?" exercise. This participatory research tool empowers individuals to express their perspectives, preferences, and priorities. By plotting items on a visual chart, you can identify key issues, allocate resources wisely, and understand diverse viewpoints.
Ecosystem Collection Map
An ecosystem collection map allows you to scan your environment by looking at your existing understanding of a topic and mapping additional research or viewpoints to explore your idea further. It allows us to completely brain dump and describe things thoughtfully. We can then examine these ideas to look for patterns across maps.
Ecosystem Maps
Learn how to create a visually stunning and comprehensive map that reveals the network of stakeholders, systems, and relationships affecting your product or service. Our guide and PDF worksheet will give you the tools to define scope, identify key stakeholders, map relationships, analyze systems, and uncover hidden gaps and opportunities.
Cover Story Mockups
Cover story mockups are an exciting way to get people involved in thinking about a possible future where their product, service, or idea has taken off and is taking the world by storm! Your cover story can help you brainstorm a variety of individual headlines, images, and quotes for different publications, allowing you to look at your project or idea through a distinct lens each time.
Cover Story Mockup
Engage stakeholders and gain support for your ideas by creating captivating cover story mockups. Visualize a future where your concept has become a reality, showcasing its potential impact and benefits. Download our free cover story mockup worksheet PDF and start crafting compelling narratives that inspire action and generate excitement.
Rose, Bud, Thorn
When considering a specific problem or topic, it is important to understand what’s working, what’s not, and what has potential. Rose, bud thorn is a great structured responding or structured thinking method that allows us to collect feedback in three different distinct buckets: positive roses, potential buds, and problematic thorns.
Rose, Bud, Thorn
Discover the power of the Rose, Bud, Thorn exercise to enhance teamwork, brainstorm ideas, and provide valuable feedback. Identify strengths, weaknesses, and areas of potential with this simple yet effective technique. With three easy steps and a customizable Miro template, you can foster open discussions, improve projects, and tap into your team's creative brilliance.
Crazy 8s
Discover the power of Crazy 8s, a fast-paced ideation technique that will unleash your creativity and help you overcome design challenges. Learn how to use this method step-by-step, with a downloadable worksheet provided. Generate a multitude of ideas in just eight minutes, identify promising concepts, and elevate your design work to new heights.
Problem Tree Analysis
Dive into this structured visual tool that uncovers the underlying causes of problems and aids in developing effective strategies. Follow the step-by-step process, engage your team, and explore innovative solutions together. Download the Problem Tree Analysis Worksheet and unleash your organization's potential for successful innovation outcomes.
Abstraction Ladder
Explore the power of the Abstraction Ladder, a dynamic tool that propels your problem-solving skills to new heights. Journey through different levels of abstraction to gain fresh perspectives, uncover hidden patterns, and generate innovative solutions. With this versatile technique, you'll master the art of zooming in and out, allowing your creativity to soar.
Affinity Map
Discover how affinity mapping can one-up your brainstorming sessions! This visual tool organizes ideas, insights, and observations into meaningful patterns, enabling your team to extract valuable insights, prioritize ideas, and guide innovative solutions. Follow our guide to create an effective affinity map and download our free worksheet to get started today.
Meet Dave Mawhinney of Carnegie Mellon, our partner
Meet Dave Mawhinney, Executive Director of The Swartz Center for Entrepreneurship at Carnegie Mellon University Dave Mawhinney was an entrepreneur long before joining Carnegie Mellon University and is excited to introduce new entrepreneurship programming for the university.
Partnering with The Swartz Center
While we all know the importance of entrepreneurship now, academics were quite different in the past. Luckily, as times change and new leadership arises, novel and audacious ideas have the spectacular opportunity to become reality. Learn about the origins of The Swartz Center at Carnegie Mellon University.
Meet Megan Guidi
If you ever have a chance to sit down with Megan Guidi, do it. Megan is an expert in all things design thinking, with some serious qualifications to prove it. She’s not just a professor at Carnegie Mellon University, she also runs her own consultancy called Open and has held a variety of senior strategist positions at top-tier companies.
Rachel Dzombak
Meet design thinking leader Dr. Rachel Dzombak. While she’s a design thinker at her core, she’s also a strategist, researcher, and educator. Rachel is currently a Technical Director and Head of Digital Transformation at Carnegie Mellon University’s Software Engineering Institute. She's excited to help us learn more about design thinking!
Meet Dave Mawhinney of Carnegie Mellon, our partner
Meet Dave Mawhinney, Executive Director of The Swartz Center for Entrepreneurship at Carnegie Mellon University Dave Mawhinney was an entrepreneur long before joining Carnegie Mellon University and is excited to introduce new entrepreneurship programming for the university.
Partnering with The Swartz Center
While we all know the importance of entrepreneurship now, academics were quite different in the past. Luckily, as times change and new leadership arises, novel and audacious ideas have the spectacular opportunity to become reality. Learn about the origins of The Swartz Center at Carnegie Mellon University.
Meet Megan Guidi
If you ever have a chance to sit down with Megan Guidi, do it. Megan is an expert in all things design thinking, with some serious qualifications to prove it. She’s not just a professor at Carnegie Mellon University, she also runs her own consultancy called Open and has held a variety of senior strategist positions at top-tier companies.
Rachel Dzombak
Meet design thinking leader Dr. Rachel Dzombak. While she’s a design thinker at her core, she’s also a strategist, researcher, and educator. Rachel is currently a Technical Director and Head of Digital Transformation at Carnegie Mellon University’s Software Engineering Institute. She's excited to help us learn more about design thinking!
Round Robin
Use a round robin exercise as a quick and efficient way to get rapid feedback on a given idea or solution. Use it with your teammates to gain new perspectives and consider different approaches. The round robin exercise starts with a series of ideas, problems, or solutions that need to be examined or ideated on further
Journey Mapping
A journey map is a tool that we can use inside of our businesses to deeply look at our services and our experiences. We can even use it when thinking about our products from the point of view of our key users. A journey map is a model for a specific user's journey. Multiple populations will result in multiple journey maps.
Creating a Problem Statement
Creating a Problem Statement Creating a problem statement (also known as asking 5 why's) allows you to evolve and think deeply about the root cause of a given problem or issue you are facing. The root cause is the problem that starts all the other problems. Solving for the root cause allows you to prevent other issues from cascading.
Abstraction Ladder
An abstraction ladder is a great framework to guide thinking as it helps us put problems in context. You can use an abstraction ladder when you’re trying to figure out where to start with a big problem, or use it with more narrow problems to try and figure out how to gain more traction.
The 20-10-10 Exercise
The 20-10-10 Exercise: How Leaders Prioritize Their Lives. The 20-10-10 exercise prompts critical and actionable thinking under the umbrella of continuous personal development and tells you, beyond intuition or bias, what you are organically motivated to put time, energy, or resources in to.
Intro to Miro
Miro is a digital whiteboard used to collaborate with our teams. Explore Miro at your own pace to create projects, boards, or frames. Learn the basic mechanics through our icebreakers template and invite your team to jump in! You can use the Strategic Design Kit hub to explore different Miro templates and use them however you like!
Stakeholder Mapping
Unlock Project Success with the Ultimate Guide to Stakeholder Mapping. Learn how to create a powerful stakeholder map that visualizes and organizes all project participants, enabling collaboration and success. Discover key steps, best practices, and effective stakeholder management techniques in this comprehensive guide.
Stakeholder Map
A stakeholder map is an organizational tool to figure out who's involved with a service or product, whether they are providing, creating, or sourcing anything along the entire chain of delivering a service. It helps you to determine the most important, key figures involved with your product, service, or idea and examine them closely.
Pilot Poster
Discover the secret weapon for perfecting your project before it even takes off. A pilot poster is your key to gathering early feedback, ironing out potential issues, and ensuring your vision becomes a reality. Learn how to create your own pilot poster, navigate concept scoping and milestone planning, and watch your idea soar to new heights.
Storyboard
Learn how storyboards bridge the gap between abstract ideas and implementation, enhance collaboration, and accelerate the development of impactful solutions. Follow our guide to creating effective storyboards and download our free storyboard worksheet to get started today. Elevate your user stories, foster empathy, and better understand user behavior with storyboards.
Personas
Personas are a summarization of common or overlapping attributes in a given audience or population. Being able to identify your brand’s possible personas is crucial when trying to make design decisions. You can use this Personas template as an empathy building tool, allowing you to connect with your user and determine their wants and needs.
Creative Matrix
The creative matrix is an immediate go-to when you need to understand how to rapidly ideate new possible solutions, improvements to a service or product, or anything in-between. This exercise helps us to diverge from the current way of thinking by making solution generation fun and insightful.
Hopes and Fears
The hopes and fears template helps us explore the power of vulnerability. It works to expose different challenges, opportunities, and feelings early on. Oftentimes, unleashing someone's purpose and passion in a safe space can be transformative. The anxiety you have can actually be a big accelerator!
Hopes and Fears
Discover the secret to successful projects with the Hopes and Fears activity! Uncover the aspirations and concerns of your stakeholders using a step-by-step guide. Download our free worksheet to ensure everyone's voices are heard and pave the way for a triumphant project or initiative. Let their hopes become reality and conquer their fears together!
What's on your radar?
What's On Your Radar is a way to understand the landscape of a given stakeholder and determine what is most important to them. This exercise is one of the earliest sensing tools you can use to describe and organize what is on the purview of any stakeholder, whether primary, secondary or even tertiary.
What's on your radar
Unveil hidden insights, prioritize effectively, and foster meaningful discussions with the "What's on Your Radar?" exercise. This participatory research tool empowers individuals to express their perspectives, preferences, and priorities. By plotting items on a visual chart, you can identify key issues, allocate resources wisely, and understand diverse viewpoints.
Ecosystem Collection Map
An ecosystem collection map allows you to scan your environment by looking at your existing understanding of a topic and mapping additional research or viewpoints to explore your idea further. It allows us to completely brain dump and describe things thoughtfully. We can then examine these ideas to look for patterns across maps.
Ecosystem Maps
Learn how to create a visually stunning and comprehensive map that reveals the network of stakeholders, systems, and relationships affecting your product or service. Our guide and PDF worksheet will give you the tools to define scope, identify key stakeholders, map relationships, analyze systems, and uncover hidden gaps and opportunities.
Cover Story Mockups
Cover story mockups are an exciting way to get people involved in thinking about a possible future where their product, service, or idea has taken off and is taking the world by storm! Your cover story can help you brainstorm a variety of individual headlines, images, and quotes for different publications, allowing you to look at your project or idea through a distinct lens each time.
Cover Story Mockup
Engage stakeholders and gain support for your ideas by creating captivating cover story mockups. Visualize a future where your concept has become a reality, showcasing its potential impact and benefits. Download our free cover story mockup worksheet PDF and start crafting compelling narratives that inspire action and generate excitement.
Rose, Bud, Thorn
When considering a specific problem or topic, it is important to understand what’s working, what’s not, and what has potential. Rose, bud thorn is a great structured responding or structured thinking method that allows us to collect feedback in three different distinct buckets: positive roses, potential buds, and problematic thorns.
Rose, Bud, Thorn
Discover the power of the Rose, Bud, Thorn exercise to enhance teamwork, brainstorm ideas, and provide valuable feedback. Identify strengths, weaknesses, and areas of potential with this simple yet effective technique. With three easy steps and a customizable Miro template, you can foster open discussions, improve projects, and tap into your team's creative brilliance.
Crazy 8s
Discover the power of Crazy 8s, a fast-paced ideation technique that will unleash your creativity and help you overcome design challenges. Learn how to use this method step-by-step, with a downloadable worksheet provided. Generate a multitude of ideas in just eight minutes, identify promising concepts, and elevate your design work to new heights.
Problem Tree Analysis
Dive into this structured visual tool that uncovers the underlying causes of problems and aids in developing effective strategies. Follow the step-by-step process, engage your team, and explore innovative solutions together. Download the Problem Tree Analysis Worksheet and unleash your organization's potential for successful innovation outcomes.
Abstraction Ladder
Explore the power of the Abstraction Ladder, a dynamic tool that propels your problem-solving skills to new heights. Journey through different levels of abstraction to gain fresh perspectives, uncover hidden patterns, and generate innovative solutions. With this versatile technique, you'll master the art of zooming in and out, allowing your creativity to soar.
Affinity Map
Discover how affinity mapping can one-up your brainstorming sessions! This visual tool organizes ideas, insights, and observations into meaningful patterns, enabling your team to extract valuable insights, prioritize ideas, and guide innovative solutions. Follow our guide to create an effective affinity map and download our free worksheet to get started today.
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