Category: Innovation

My Crash Course in Service Design
Discovering the Wonderful World of Service Design Not long after “accidentally” discovering the world of design thinking, I was introduced to the equally wonderful world of service design. Oddly, my first exposure to service design came during a significant setback in my career. A new venture I had helped to launch, was failing. At the time, we ...

Mastering the Design Sprint
Last month, I made the decision to invest in myself and go “back to school” online through AJ&Smart’s Design Sprint Masterclass. My hope was to learn how to facilitate the newest version of the Google Ventures design sprint, the Design Sprint 2.0. AJ&Smart (AJS) makes what appears to be some fairly lofty claims for its Design Sprint ...

AJ&Smart’s Design Sprint Masterclass
It’s official. The Accidental Design Thinker is going back to school… design sprint school with Design Sprint Masterclass! Where am I going for my studies? – Online, in partnership with Berlin-based design sprint firm AJ&Smart. After spending a month exploring a broad range of design sprint training options, I finally made the decision to enroll in AJ&Smart’s newly ...

Ultimate Guide to Design Sprint Training Tools & Resources
Design sprints are rapidly gaining steam within organizations (including my own), and have driven considerable demand for design sprint training tools and resources. Google Venture’s 5-day design sprint approach, popularized and democratized by Jake Knapp in his best-selling book ‘Sprint’, has quickly become a hot commodity in innovative organizations ranging from start-ups to massive Fortune 500 companies. ...

Design Thinking 2018 Austin Conference
My journey as a design thinking practitioner, just took a momentous leap forward. A few days ago, I attended Design Thinking 2018, my first-ever design thinking conference, and it was an INCREDIBLE experience! My 3 days in Austin for this conference, are days that I know I’ll cherish and draw from for the rest of ...

The 5 Minute Brainstorm
Great brainstorm facilitation requires lots of reps, trial, and error. As a new design thinking practitioner, I found the Ideate phase of design thinking particularly challenging since I had minimal prior experience in conducting brainstorms. It took me considerable time to plan my first brainstorm after my initial design thinking training. It took me even more ...