TEI 019: Applying the 5 Steps of Design Thinking – with Ethan Appleby

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you episode 019 of...

The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD.

The podcast is all about helping people involved in developing and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers.

Our Guest: Ethan Appleby is a Design Thinking practitioner and coach. He used Design Thinking to create the last company he founded, Vango, which makes it easy for anyone to select and purchase original art.

In the interview he shares the 5 steps of Design Thinking.

1. Empathy: learning about the audience you are designing for. Be curious instead of leading the conversation to a conclusion you already formed.
2. Definition: constructing a point of view organized by needs and insights, based on your results from step 1.
3. Ideation: a group brainstorming process to generate ideas using the “yes and…” technique to build upon each others’ ideas and create as many as possible in short sprints. Another tool is to ask “how might we…” focused on specific constraints. A sprint is a few minutes of individual ideation followed by sharing of ideas, then using “yes and” to build on ideas. Additional sprints are conducted on other needs and insights and to further explore specific ideas. Constrain ideation to 3 hours.
4. Prototype: building a representation of one of your ideas to show others. When you build something you discover more about the problem. Keep it simple – playdough, clay, tape, etc.
5. Testing: Show prototype to potential users and customers to get their feedback. The goal is to continue learning about the customers’ core problem and solutions that provide them value.