Achieve “Impossible” Results PredictablyEnable your team to do what seems impossible,
Scrappy Design Thinking Overview
Both design thinking and Scrappy Project Management© share an obsession with “the customer”. And both start by “thinking from the future” rather than getting stuck in the current situation, hampered by self-‐limiting beliefs about what’s possible. Rather than using the classic design thinking model of Empathize – Define – Ideate – Prototype – Test, let’s use a cycle that’s a bit easier to remember:
- Rather than instinctively jumping to HOW to solve a “problem”, start with WHY -‐ Why is this project important?
- Next explore WHO – who cares, who’s impacted, who’s involved, and who’s judging the success of your project?
- Then move on to WHAT – what outcomes would go beyond “solving a problem” to surprise and delight your stakeholders?
- Then, and only then, design and prototype HOW to achieve these outcomes and delight these stakeholders.
- Go through the entire cycle again, expanding, revising, and refining your prototypes repeatedly, until you collapse in an exhausted heap, worn out, but with a self-‐satisfied smile on your barrier-‐ shattering face. Hmmm . . . perhaps I overpromise. Let’s see what happens.
READ KIMBERLY’S 2 ARTICLES on SCRAPPY DESIGN THINKING:
- What is Design Thinking? Kimberly provides an overview of Design Thinking: an elegantly simple methodology shrouded in complicated jargon. “Design Thinking” describes an incredibly powerful set of process and tools that are extremely useful in designing innovative products and services, and indispensable to anyone facing seemingly insurmountable challenges. Read more …
- Scrappy Design Thinking: Simple Rules, Practical Tools So Design Thinking sounds great, but how is it done? Kimberly explains her Scrappy approach that integrates key elements of design thinking with a Scrappy Project Management style. Using this approach will generate new possibilities that you’d never discover using traditional problem-centric approaches. Read more …
BIG WHY?
ASK WHY LIKE A KID. Spend five minutes using the “Ask Why Five Times” approach. For example, if you choose a theme like “developing a new product for our target market” this exercise might go like this:
- Why do we need to develop a new product for this market?
- To remain competitive with other products on the market.
- Why do we need to remain competitive?
- So we can achieve next year’s revenue targets.
- Why do we need to achieve next year’s revenue targets?
- So we can stay in business.
- Why do we need to stay in business?
- So we can continue to provide our products to our customers.
- Why do we need to continue to provide our products?
- Because our products dramatically improve the quality of life for our customers.
What started off as a relatively uninspiring need to get a product to market and make some money has been transformed into a purpose beyond profit. When teams apply this exercise to their project theme they often end up with “To improve life on Earth!” or something equally inspiring. If you can’t get to something meaningful in five rounds of this exercise then maybe you’re working on the wrong project.
BIG WHO?
This is the most important part of the entire cycle, because if you don’t truly understand who your project intends to delight, it’s unlikely that you’ll delight them.
Get ready to obsess about stakeholders, because we’ll spend the most time on this part of the cycle! Who will benefit from your work? Who will use your product or service? Guessing at the wants and needs of customers is a poor substitute for swimming in their fishbowl.
Thought leaders like Steve Blank have advocated making customer focus the center of new product and service development. Steve insists that participants in his “Lean Launch Pad” classes interview dozens or even hundreds of customers.
Creating products and services without considering important stakeholders – like customers for example -‐ is a common problem in new product development. As many as 75% of new products fail to attract enough customers to be considered successful! It’s absolutely vital to explicitly integrate key stakeholders into your development process. This is the essence of the first phase of the design thinking process. Read more…
BIG WHAT?
Making an experience map often leads to creative insights into what is required at various points in the journey. But just stating the problem to be solved isn’t enough to inspire people to open their minds, break through barriers, and generate innovative solutions. This is a great time to craft what’s called a challenge statement.
Writing a good challenge statement isn’t rocket science. I like to start with Joel Barker’s paradigm-‐shifting question: “What seems impossible today, but if it WERE possible, would transform X for the better?” Based on this, create a one-‐sentence statement that is the focus of the rest of your project. While creating your challenge statement, here are the most important things to keep in mind:
- It must be focused on the desired future.
- It must describe this future in a way that inspires and engages the team.
- It must NOT prescribe HOW to achieve the future state. Armed with your passion-‐inducing challenge statement, it’s time to create the fabulous future!
But, before jumping into HOW you will achieve the future to which you aspire, you must spend time imagining it vividly.
BIG HOW?
As you might have guessed, it’s finally time to imagine ways to fulfill the Big Crazy Dream defined in your challenge statement. A more powerful way to ask how is to ask, “What would make this possible?” I like “brainwriting” better than brainstorming for idea generation because, again, non-‐native English speakers can usually write and read English better than they can talk and listen, and quieter people can contribute more, too.
Partial Client List
Intuit, Symantec, Extreme Networks, P.A.R.C., Panasonic, AMD, Rockliffe, Bad Girl Swirl, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, HP, UC Santa Cruz, I-4, Kyoto University, Chiron, Entelos, Suntory, Daiichi Sankyo Pharma, Oracle, Kuraray, Mazda, Pigeon, Mizuho Securities, vmware, Yamaha, Cisco
Testimonials
The recommendation of a transformed cynic: Kimberly is a bit like a cyclone – she will turn your world upside down and blow you away. Unlike a cyclone, however, she will be sure that all of the important pieces remain; neatly reorganized and stronger than before she met you. She will also, undoubtedly, leave many gems behind for you as well – some ready to display and others for you to continue polishing throughout your life and career. You will definitely be richer for having crossed her path. With unrivaled passion, Kimberly effortlessly blends principles of transformational leadership, communication, cultural understanding and relationship building and links them directly to operational excellence with brilliant simplicity. I learned more practical skills in a 6-day program led by Kimberly than I have in nearly three decades of management education and experience. These lessons will not only allow me to foster an environment that is both enjoyable and highly productive, but will, as a result, make the company I work in stronger and more successful. Without question, Kimberly merits my highest recommendation.
— Ross McClure, Manufacturing Manager, SuperPower, Inc., a Furukawa Company
Kimberly’s Leading From Any Chair workshop is the single most powerful class I’ve attended, and the highest rated class I’ve participated in. Her teachings have fundamentally changed me as a leader, a coach, and a team member.
— Lesley Kew, Intuit
Bio
Kimberly Wiefling helps individuals, teams and organizations achieve what SEEMS impossible, but is merely difficult. How? By turning managers into leaders and groups of people into real teams through her unique “WorkShocks” – highly engaging, experiential, interactive “Learning Laboratories” where meaningful positive change happens.
DEEP EXPERIENCE with GLOBAL COMPANIES: Kimberly has worked all over the US, Europe and Asia, traveling to Japan over 100 times, to work with culturally diverse employees of globalizing Japanese companies. Her superpower is bringing people with diverse backgrounds, cultures & styles together, across borders and boundaries of every kind, to achieve what none could do alone. See details of her work at Silicon Valley Alliances.
Kimberly’s first book, Scrappy Project Management, was also published in Japanese by the #1 business publisher in Japan, Nikkei Business Press. She has edited and co-authored an additional 6 books in the “Scrappy Guides” series, and dozens of blogs. Her mentor, Dr. Edgar Schein, wrote the foreword to her new book “Inspired Organizational Cultures – Discover Your DNA, Engage Your People, and Design Your Future”, which was published in a dual English/Japanese format in March of 2018.
A TECHNOLOGIST with HUMAN SKILLS: A physicist by education, Kimberly realized long ago the limits of technology devoid of human skills – the so-called “touchy feely” aspects of working in teams so vital to success, and so frequently overlooked. Kimberly’s mentor, Dr. Schein, has been a guiding influence on her work to transform business results through practical, sensible approaches. Kimberly is a co-founder of the Silicon Valley Engineering Leadership Community Meetup (SVELC, formerly SVForum EL SIG), building leadership capabilities and community among Silicon Valley technical leaders.
BUSINESS RESULTS FOCUS: Kimberly facilitates highly engaging leadership, organizational change, and team effectiveness workshops based on her “Possibilities Toolbox”, Scrappy Design Thinking, Scrappy Project Management, and Inspired Company Cultures. Her intensive behavior-changing “learning laboratories” directly translate into positive business results which are meaningful and measurable.
SPECIALIZING in CROSS-FUNCTIONAL AND CROSS-CULTURAL TEAMS: Kimberly has worked globally with people from over 50 different countries, in every corporate function, including manufacturing, finance, Information Technology, R&D, Engineering, Marketing, and executive leadership teams. Her clients include many well-known global brands in a broad range of industries including B2B products and services, pharma, 3D printing, financial services, food and beverages, online portals, and consumer products.
FROM STARTUPS to GLOBAL 1000: In addition to her extensive experience with global companies, Kimberly is a serial entrepreneur. She’s been involved in ~ a dozen startups. One was acquired by Google, Elite Horse Clothing is still in operation, and she helped EmbeddedWorks bootstrap to 7 figure annual revenues.
MAKING a DIFFERENCE: Kimberly is passionate about making a meaningful difference by working with organizations, individuals and teams committed to solving the problems of Our World – profitably and thus sustainably. She is determined to transform Planet Earth one effective leader and engaged team at a time!
Kimberly’s books are available on Amazon here.
Contact
Kimberly Wiefling
Wiefling Consulting, Inc.
Phone US: +1 650 867 0847
consulting@wiefling.com