This is the first in a series of posts documenting how I’m applying a design thinking approach to a project I’m working on.

“Design thinking is a problem-solving methodology that focuses heavily on involving users of a solution in its design” (Boller and Fletcher, 2020).

This definition comes from the book ‘Design Thinking for Training and Development’ by Sharon Boller and Laura Fletcher. It’s the first (that I know of) that frames design thinking in the context of learning and development. It’s a valuable source of ideas and templates and if you’d like to incorporate design thinking into your projects, get your hands on a copy of this book. The overarching framework that’s used tweaks the ‘traditional’ design thinking model.

Why use a design thinking approach?

There are two things that attract me to using design thinking for L&D projects. Firstly, it’s user or human-centred, meaning that the needs of end users are the focus. The aim is to create solutions that solve a problem they are having. Some would say that this is what L&D should always be doing but sadly many learning teams are focussed on content. Secondly, solutions are developed based on research and data and in an iterative way with end users. It’s the opposite of the ‘order taking’ role that many learning departments are stuck in.

My experience with design thinking

I’ve been aware of the practice of design thinking for a few years now. I’ve read about it and watched videos on it. But knowing about something and using in the real world are two different things. For this reason, I’m a newbie to the application of design thinking tools and techniques. This project is the first time that I’ve been given the freedom and support to use an approach like this for a L&D project. I’m using the book as a guide as I move through the various stages in the approach.

The request

The initial request for this project was to improve the onboarding experience for new starters and their managers. Rather than coming up with ideas up front, the design thinking approach means to come at the project from a place of curiosity. I need to uncover the problems being experienced which will show what needs improving. This involves asking lots of questions. The one which is guiding this part of the project is: What is the current onboarding experience for new starters and managers?

Getting perspective

In the ‘traditional’ design thinking approach the first step is to empathise with end users but Boller and Fletcher refer to this as ‘getting perspective’. I like this phrasing because it emphasises finding out other points of view in order to see a bigger picture.

There are three essential questions to consider at the beginning:

What problems are we trying to solve? | What does success look like? | How will we measure success?

For this project, the answers to these will come once we have more perspective.

First steps

In my organisation, we have people spread across all areas of mainland Australia. Some of our workforce is office based, others are mostly in the field, some are a combination of these. Many people are still mostly working from home. To reach people and to find out more, I created a survey.

Now I know surveys can be problematic (this was even mentioned in the book). But I tried to minimise this by having a good mix of ‘free text’ questions where respondents can provide more detailed information. I used Microsoft Forms as the survey tool with an option for people to leave their name so that I can contact them to discuss their experience further. The purpose of these ‘interviews’ is to flesh out survey responses in more detail and help to create new starter and manager personas.

In the next post, I’ll discuss more about my approach to data gathering, conducting interviews and creating personas.