bring out your inner design thinker: crafting your own tools for change
TRANSCRIPT
BEN CROTHERS | ATLASSIAN | @BENCROTHERS
BRING OUT YOUR INNER DESIGN THINKER
Crafting your own tools for change
Are these still around?IT’S 2025…
How can we craft tools for change with what’s already around us?
We’ve got problems…
We’ve been swindled
Craftsman
Tools through the ages: Up to 18th C. - Agrarian
Mechanisation & division of labour
Toolmaker Manufacturing
Tools through the ages: 19th C. - Industrial
Rise of computers & software
Software
Services
Toolmaker Manufacturing
Tools through the ages: 20th C. - Services
ProcessesKanban Rapid prototyping
Tools through the ages: 21st C. - Experience
Toolmaker ManufacturingServicesSoftware
Cloudification of software & services
Tools through the ages: 21st C. - Experience
Services
Cloudification of software & services
Toolmaker ManufacturingSoftware
?
Tools through the ages: 21st C. - Experience
Services
The thinking that got us to here,won’t get us to there
Get back that making feeling
Change = Engaging the head, heart and hands
Helps us engage the head, the heart and the hands
Design thinking
Deep and holistic user understanding Visualising, prototyping and refining Fostering a culture to bring out ideas from anyone in an organisation
Design thinking
The process
Prototype Test & learnIdeate
Prototyping formats
More ideas
Prototype Test & learnIdeate
Making is as valuable as what is made
Tools for changeUN-TAPPED
BrainstormingFIRST GEAR
Journey mappingSECOND GEAR
PrototypingTHIRD GEAR
The ‘blank tool’ problem
?
Brainstorming
Translating
OrganisingPrioritising
Deciding
Testing
Prototyping
Educating
1. Canvases 2. Scorecards 3. Posters 4. Playing cards
Example formats to help
Great for collecting all essential information for your idea, project, target audience, product or service Bake a process in Forcing function for clarity before moving ahead
1. Canvases
Example - Business Model CanvasAll key pieces of info in one place
Atlassian Experience Canvas
Hypothesis - what we set out to test
Minimum viable experience (MVE)
End-to-end demo
What problem we’re trying to solve
Making your own1. Nominate a goal
Build a product/service Find a business partner Educate the organisation
2. Gather types of infoTo make decisions To communicate to others To let others take action
4. Fill in with your teamUse the canvas to discuss and fill in answers
3. Make a canvasArrange all the key pieces of info into boxes
Great for team-based decision-making A set of measures to help rate the health of projects, teams and outcomes Use them to clarify, not to police Involve the team in choosing what’s scored
2. Scorecards
Atlassian Project Health Monitor1 full-time owner
Balanced team
Shared understanding
Value and metrics
End-to-end demo
Consistent communication
Dependencies
Velocity
8 areas that indicate project health, rated as: Green - on track and all good Yellow - needs attention Red - Fix this puppy!
Atlassian Project Health Monitor1 full-time owner
Balanced team
Shared understanding
Value and metrics
End-to-end demo
Consistent communication
Dependencies
Velocity
DATE 1 DATE 2 DATE 3
Making your own1. Discuss with the team
What makes a project healthy? What’s holding us back?
2. CondenseRefine your ‘health criteria’ to just enough
4. Fill in with your teamPick a real project, fill it out Iterate and refine
3. Have a simple scaleWhat’s your scoring scale? 1, 2, 3? Red, yellow, green?
Great for re-framing ideas and clarifying value A lot of fun to create as a team The process of making them is just as important as reading them
3. Posters
In-flight safety card
Fun format
Smart questions
Making your own1. Define the audience
Who are you wanting to communicate to? What is their context?
2. Define the valueWhy should your audience care? What’s the call to action?
4. Make it interactivePrototype, gauge interest How might you make people do something with it?
3. Design the posterMovie poster? In-flight safety card? In-store product?
Great for being a catalyst for richer conversations and game-play ‘Mobile version’ of larger tools Creating them from other assets forces you to simplify and clarify Easy and cheap to print - makeplayingcards.com
4. Playing cards
Customer benefit cards
For brainstorming: - what’s the most
important benefit for this feature?
- How might we improve this feature according to these benefits?
Design + Agile cards
Persona cards
Communicards
Role cards Questions about what this role does
Persona cards Questions about how this type of person behaves
Using persona cards to ideate and validate
Making your own1. Pick a function
Brainstorming? Prioritising? Reducing something else?
2. Explore formatsRegular playing cards? Just words on cards? Drawn pictures?
4. Play with themPrototype, gauge interest Are there different ways you could use them?
3. Design the cardsIs it a game, or thinking device? Do you score points?
Making is as valuable as what is made
IF YOU TAKE AWAY ONE THING…
BEN CROTHERS | ATLASSIAN | @BENCROTHERS
THANK YOU. GO FORTH.
Make change!