inventedhere

The first two Workshops in Design Thinking are over, and in summary they were a huge success.

Altogether, in two days 30 people of the Gnome community were taught how to apply Design Thinking and came up with six surprising solutions. The teams were comprised of developers as well as usability people and users.

The initial challenge we prepared for the workshop was: How might we simplify the handling of digital information? This question implies how to store, archive and find digital information in a more comfortable way.

The participants went through the entire Design Thinking Process in two and a half hours. The results range from an instant tagging system for cameras, new categories in the interface, a search engine for personal data, to an additional drawing device with shape recognition. In the second workshop the participants came up with a user interface which forces users to actually tag their photos.

Those ideas were prototyped in rough and rapid manner. After proudly-presenting their prototypes, a last feedback session rounded off an exhausting but fun workshop at GUADEC.

Workhop participants

The E-Voyeur - Finding pictures through a drawing device with shape recognition

Prototype of LifeTag - a camera with an instant tagging system before files are uploaded on the computer

In response to the good feedback and a lot of people who couldn’t make it to the first two workshops, we decided to actually give a reprise on Thursday at 15:45 in room Copenhagen. Make sure you sign up at participants list right in the main hall, or drop a mail to cbuss (at) src (dot) gnome (dot) org. Follow the Design Workshop on Twitter to get updates from the team: http://twitter.com/harokkar

We are talking about the Workshop again in the Lightning Talk session on Friday.

Also hear the voices of Stéphane and Ivanka, two of the participants who were blogging about us.

Teamarbeit macht Spaß, kann aber auch beschwerlich und anstrengend sein. Wenn man intensiv zusammenarbeitet gehören Reibung und Spannungen einfach dazu. Oft unterscheiden sich Ansichten, Ziele und Vorgehensweisen der Teammitglieder. Oft führen fehlendes Verständnis und Engagement der anderen zu Demotivation und Enttäuschung. Wieso bringt Sie sich heute nicht ein? Wieso reagiert Er heute so gereizt? Manchmal könnte man meinen, es läge an der allgemeinen Stimmung im Team oder vielleicht sogar dem Projekt an sich. Fälschlicherweise, denn es könnten genausgut die persönlichen Umstände des einzelnen Teammitgliedes sein.

Um diesen Phänomen vorzubeugen, beginnen wir bei inventedhere jedes Meeting mit einem Ritual, dem sogenannten Check-In: Zu Beginn des Meetings beschreibt jedes Mitglied kurz seinen eigenen Gemütszustand. Bin ich entspannt? Habe ich genug geschlafen oder bin ich anderweitig im Stress? Vier Sätze genügen, um den anderen mitzuteilen, wie meine momentane Verfassung ist. Verhalte ich mich dann  unangebracht, kann der Rest des Teams das entsprechend einordnen ohne es auf sich selbst zu beziehen.  So steigert der Check-in die Empathie im Team und sorgt für mehr Harmonie und gegenseitiges Verständnis bei der Arbeit. Eine Check-Out Runde am Ende des Meetings hilft um über das eigene Verhalten im Team zu reflektieren.

Last week the German design blog bettertastethansorry.com published an interview with Felix, who invents here. Blogger Markus Roitsch talked with him about the processes at the d-school in Potsdam and his views on Design Thinking.

Markus Roitsch:
Can you give a short introduction into the HPI D-School in Potsdam? In which way is it different than other schools and universities?

Felix:

[...] Playing is important to be creative and keep an open mind, which is vital to being innovative. Whenever you feel stuck and don’t get anywhere, it is probably time to stop and do something different, like playing around with Legos or try out tiny RC-Helicopters.

Read the interview here.