Introducing the Design Thinking Canvas

Take these three stories, from three different spaces:

• In a city: A municipality (District of North Vancouver) was struggling to increase citizen engagement around key decisions — they kept seeing limited participation in town halls. Through a series of workshops and research steps, they realized they needed to meet citizens where they are: online. They developed a new way to create a digital town hall for community engagement, which subsequently became its own standalone product.
• In an organization: A non-profit was struggling with behind-the-scenes leadership and cultural challenges, and then…the key leader resigned. Instead of simply rehiring a new leader into the same cultural drama, the organization paused. They invited their entire membership to be part of a co-creation process in which they revisited their mission, vision and values. It changed the community, and helped create healthier conditions for deliberate growth.
• In a country: The country of Mauritius was struggling economically. The instinctive response would have been to (again) stimulate existing industries. Instead, they brought key leaders together to reimagine new assets and opportunities, and realized they hadn’t been tapping their biggest asset: their oceans. This breakthrough led to the creation of a whole new industry of tidal energy.

Each of these stories illustrate the power and potential of a co-creative design thinking process: breakthrough solutions emerge through listening to a community’s needs, and exploring new possibilities. It’s that pause, when you see a problem, where we face a choice: do we act into the same-old habitual responses, or do we bring people together, and together explore unknown, alternative solutions?

When we find ourselves in situations where we need new ways of thinking, and we are ready to bring people along with us, these are the times that give us an opportunity to use a design thinking approach to co-creative problem solving. It’s a chance to bring people with us through a framework of leading, listening and innovating, to see if we can unstick our challenges.

What challenges are you facing that seem like mere problems, but can be turned into opportunities? Where are your overlooked assets, and your under-served communities?

For moments like this, we’ve taken some of the principles we follow for co-creation and collaborative leadership, and adapted them to a helpful download: Domain7’s Design Thinking Canvas. This tool provides a guide to the design thinking framework, with a tilt towards co-creation.

> Download your own copy of the design thinking canvas <

To bring your team into a co-creation effort, we’ve created a short into video to help you imagine ways to adapt it to your organization, city, community or country.

We suggest using the canvas by splitting it into three main activities:

Your first step is to get acquainted with your problem space. You can do this in the space of a short session with your team. During this time together, your goal is to discuss, plan and build agreement on the pathway you’ll take

• What is your change idea? We start by taking a look at how you see the problem itself. In 10–15 minutes, share how each of you see your change idea. (You can record your responses in the first boxes: “My change idea, as I see it today?” and “How do we see the problem space?”)
• How do we need to show up? This is chance to reflect on the leadership styles needed from each participant. It’s an opportunity to draw on resources like “The Way We Show Up” podcast episode, and the companion article. As a team, spend 20–30 minutes discussing your leadership stances, and how this topic area feels for you personally. (You can each record your response under the “People” column, with “What is the leadership stance I need?”)
• How do we see the problem space? You’ll want to explore more whether this is a problem that truly needs design thinking, and how you’d categorize the problem. For reference, you can refer to the “The Way We Frame The Problem” podcast episode. (You can record your responses in the “How do we see the problem space?” box, and by using the checkboxes at the top of the canvas.)
• Who is the community this idea serves? Take a moment to discuss as a group who your idea truly impacts. Is there a user or audience group that needs to be your main focus?
• How will we listen to this community? This is where we begin to plan actual engagements. You can plan for 1-on-1- interviews, experience mapping sessions, focus groups, digital engagements, town halls, or other engagement styles. It’s time to make a plan for how you will actually engage; that will inform session #2.
• What is the listening stance you’ll need? Before you check out from this session, take stock of how your team feels in connection to this engagement. Will it be challenging and confrontational to gather diverse, divisive opinions? Will it be welcoming and warm, and much-needed chance to connect? And what is needed from you as the listener: curiosity, good planning, professional support? Take note of your team’s responses to this question.

This first session will help you plan the rest of your engagement, and get your team on the same page of how you’re going to explore your community’s needs, and the subsequent idea space.

Coming out of your last session, you’ll now have a plan for how to engage your community. You’ll want to make sure you’ve listed:

• Assumptions your group is making about the community
• Gaps in your knowledge
• Key questions to ask your community
• Your method of engagement

You’ll step into your engagements in the manner that suits your community. This might be a half-day in-person workshop, or some in-the-field observation sessions, or a digital engagement…you are the one who is best equipped to determine how best to engage. We’re happy to advise if you need a hand planning these sessions. For additional support for this phase, you can consider using this Changemaker’s Check-up tool.

After listening, it’s time to coalesce and synthesize your insights into your guiding brief: your How Might We question. This is often brought together by combining two main questions: Who is the community you are serving, what is the future state you’re envisioning for them? It is from this frame that you can spring to the next steps.

As you build your How Might We question, you can ask yourself two additional questions:

• Why would we? — that is, what ethical considerations might need to be brought into this?
• What’s stopping us? — what are the actual obstacles?

With a community that has been heard, and with their insights and needs new distilled into a powerful HMW question, you’re prepared to explore new possibilities.

You’ve now mapped our the problem space, and you’ve engaged in some in-depth listening with your community. What’s next? A design sprint.

A healthy co-design sprint is best adapted to suit the type of product, solution or policy you’re looking to create. For help designing a good design sprint, a starting point might be our resource on the 3-hour co-design sprint.

Your intention will be to flow between these activities:

• Divergent generation of ideas, using approaches like The Flip or What Would Mother Do, or Crazy 8s
• Sketching and articulation of concepts, using group sketches
• Filtering and reviewing options, using tools like Flamethrower/Backfeed, Dotmocracy and others
• Creating prototype/testing plans to invite users back to review the concepts

By using the Design Thinking Canvas as a guide, you will hopefully have moved through 3 key phases as a group:

• Planning and problem-framing: Helping your team come to a new and holistic understanding of the space you’re in, how you each individually feel about the problem space, the type of community you’re serving, and how you’re seeing the problem.
• Community listening and engagement: You’ll have embarked on a journey to actually listen to the realities and needs of the people you’re serving
• Design sprint: You’ll have taken these insights and turned them into several testable iterations of new directions.

A deep process of co-creation means walking alongside a community, even through ambiguity and uncertainty, to find those pockets of insight and innovation that can flip everything around. It takes courage to lead through spaces like this, and is not something we do alone. Drop me a line if you’d like to explore this further; I’m always curious about how we improve and adapt these methods to truly strengthen our communities. I’d love to walk with you through these journeys, as a co-creator.