I attended an event at ThoughtWorks in Sydney for the Sydney Design Thinking Meetup group re:Design. The speaker, Alvaro Márquez (Head of Service Design, Experience Strategy, R&D at Australian Broadcasting Corporation) was more of an interviewer trying to elicit a conversation on what Design Thinking means to each of the 70+ people attending personally.
Well as personally as you can get in a group that large!
To that end I have put up a survey to get some more input from the group. All results are public and available to be viewed upon completion of the survey (make sure to bookmark the link or contact me with any problems).
I made the following notes during the talk on Asus VivoTab 8 using Microsoft OneNote 2016 on Windows 8.1 (a story for another time);
WHO ARE YOU?
- Hybrid designer. Expert at 1 thing & pretty good at a lot of things
- Solving bigger problems
WHAT KEEPS YOU AT NIGHT?
- The future. Regret about past. Anxious about the future.
- Drives you crazy by solving a lot of complex shit for other people. Compromising you own well being.
- Walk in any direction. Cooking for friends. Thinking about the experience.
WHAT DO YOU LOOK FORWARD TO WAKING UP IN THE MORNING?
- Commute/walk/ride to work to get into right head space. Me time.
- Do more then design. Fill in the missing dots. Diversity.
HOW MUCH NON DESIGN WORK ARE YOU WILLING TO DO TO SOLVE A DESIGN PROBLEM?
- Admin to have good environment for team
- Communication of value of design process. Evangelising. Engaging in process.
- Mundane tasks are meditative for design problem solving.
- Emotional intelligence support as team therapist.
DO YOU THINK EVERY PROBLEM IS A DESIGN PROBLEM THAT CAN BE SOLVED?
- Design is the manifestation of intent. Not all solutions are designed.
- Is a design approach fit for purpose. ROI. Efficiency.
- Human centred design or no human participation in solution.
- Complex environments is cause by previous designs & exacerbating/solving the wrong solutions.
WHAT NEW MISTAKES DID YOU DO LAST YEAR?
- Presenting a complete solution kills the design process.
- Assume communication has occurred.
- Scaling design before its required
WHO IS REALLY IN CHARGE AND HOW MUCH YOU ARE WORTH?
- What value do you bring to an organisation. Measurable outcomes.
- Organisation issue.
- Create the design environment & the business comfortable with design decisions
WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU EXPERIENCED FLOW AT WORK?
- Balance + multitasking
- Human genome run project on flow. Based on extreme athlete programs. Chemical brain performance dopamine. Rise of Supermen.
- Challenge verses achievable. Gamafication.
HOW DO YOU CHOSE WHAT PROBLEMS TO FOCUS ON & WHERE YOU PUT YOUR ENERGY?
- Rob peter to pay Paul. Bargain a commercial allowance to do fun problems.
- Ethical decisions. No harm/negative filter to rationalise
WHAT DOES COMPETITIVE SALARY AND DYNAMIC ENVIRONMENT REALLY MEAN?
- Its a privileged position to live in. Stage of life.
HOW DO YOU DEAL WITH FAILURE & CONFLICT?
- Timing. Embrace the failure and working a way forward. Doesn’t remove the judgement. Your body knows before your brain does? Excuses rather then admitting its a failure. Part of the human condition. Fail in new ways
WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING FOR IN A MENTOR?
- Same values. Two way conversation. Challenges you with questions.
WHAT’S THE RIGHT WAY TO GET FIRED?
- Plan it. Inevitable. Make it east for your boss.
- Became a personal when they didn’t agree.
- Most managers cant fire. New hatchet man.
- There are different ways to solve problems by upsetting people or a single cause
Lucas Mara spoke about his and his family’s life experiences at the end of discussion and what I took home was that;
- Most people tend to always want things you don’t have overlooking what you have.
- Community support is always there just waiting to be tapped and rise to the forefront during times of crisis and challenge.