- Creative flow is about achieving the mental space
for creative thinking.
However, not everybody gets into the flow in the same way,
and it could be particularly challenging when you have
people who use your product, or stakeholders from other
parts of the business collaborating with you who may not be
as comfortable with ambiguity as you and your team.
Much of what we call design thinking is about having a set
of methods and approaches that help people get
into the creative flow, a mental space that's both active
and tranquil.
This state of mind allows for new idea generation,
provocative thinking, and the confidence to offer
an untested or unusual idea.
When you're bringing others together to collaborate
with you, you need strategies to help keep them focused
on small enough asks that they don't get lost
in the big picture, and with the safety
to offer untested ideas.
So, facilitation skills are key,
but I find one of the most
effective methods for getting teams into flow
is timeboxing activities.
It works for internal teams and for co-creation
with users or stakeholders.
So, timeboxing is a collaboration technique that uses
methods such as worksheets, which build from small
focused questions to bigger creative moments.
It keeps the time for each quite limited, so teams suspend
their judgement and have enough focus for creative ideas
to come forward.
Timeboxing does take a bit of planning.
You determine the amount of time you work together,
and you map that time into manageable steps,
each of which result in something tangible like an idea
or a sketch.
This pre-planning gives structure to problem solving
and keeps the idea generation focused.
And breaking down a big question into small steps
helps everyone see progress being made.
Plus, as a time management technique,
timeboxing helps you get to ideas faster
than unfocused idea generation.
So, as a basic rule, timebox things to no more than
about 20 minutes per step, and you'll find that worksheets
do help keep people focused on each part of the activity.
And in general, a worksheet should have no more than
three to four steps, also for focus.
And that 15 to 20 minutes is about the length of time
a small group can focus on any single question
before being tempted to dive into a rat hole
of details or naysay.
And that three to four steps is about the number of jumps
people are comfortable with before they need
to see something at least somewhat tangible
for their efforts.
So, here's an example of a frog workshop.
The team, here, is taking some very random inputs
to generate a list of characteristics that they're going
to mash up with their focus area to quickly inspire
possible concepts.
Now, they've moved to a worksheet with a similar number
of steps, but it's all about making those ideas
more tangible.
And now here, they're sharing out their refined ideas
with the group.
In workshops where time gets tight, it's tempting to skip
this share out.
But this act of verbalizing what you've done and listening
to other groups for inspiration is one of the key moments
in facilitating design thinking, so try not to skip it.
In this example, timeboxing took the team
from very off the wall inputs, to idea generation,
to shareable sketches in less than an hour.
A few things to consider about timeboxing and flow
when you're facilitating groups with non-team members.
Timeboxing shared activities creates constraints
and provides a sense of order that allows people to suspend
their judgement or their frustration.
And keeping activities to about 20 minutes or so per step
helps that focus.
And remember to always make something tangible
for a shareout, and it might be a sketch, a performance,
or a presentation of the idea.
Because worksheets are so effective at helping people
collaborate with a design thinking team.
You'll find many examples of worksheets in the literature
and online.
I recommend building your team a tool kit
of these worksheets.
So, that when you all want to bring others
into your process, you have a strong set to select between.
If you'd like to share some of these worksheets or examples
that you found with the course community, head to the
course community on linkedIn, and share a link
or comment about what you found.