The design mind distills a design problem down to the essential few questions that, if asked in the right sequence and answered in a thoughtful way, are almost guaranteed to produce an elegant and genuinely human-centered design. The design mind’s thought process is, above all else, simple and effortless. Simple because it is just a series of questions, requiring no complex theories, concepts, or methodologies to understand. Effortless because if you ask a better question, the answers reveal themselves almost automatically.

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At this workshop, we will shift our focus away from methodologies, workflows, and artifacts, and instead focus our efforts on finding a simpler way of thinking. 

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Our starting question is this:

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How might we design...This is the thought process you will use on the project. This is the also the essence of design that we are trying to discover (the design mind thought process).
 

…a better way...This is the final deliverable of the project, the experience we want to provide to our customers in service of the outcomes.
 

…for a person...Who are we designing for? We must answer this before we can design the way.
 

…to get the outcomes and results…What outcomes do these persons want? What does success look like? And what are the variations on the outcomes and the prerequisite results?
 

…that they care about...What makes them care about it? What events happen in their lives to trigger their need or desire to achieve this outcome and these results?
 

…and convince my stakeholders and collaborators it’s the right thing to do? What is the business case for the better way? What resistance might I confront? How do I engage my partners to support the way?

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From this starting point, we will follow a cascade of prerequisite questions and answers - focusing  on only those concepts and activities that are essential to answering each one - until we arrive and the final answer, the final design.