Design Thinking Workshops

This is how Anthropic decides what to build next—and it's brilliant. Instead of endless spec documents and roadmap debates, the Claude Code team has cracked the code on feature prioritization: prototype first, decide later. Here's their process (shared by Catherine Wu, Product Lead at Anthropic): Step 1: Idea → Prototype Got a feature idea? Skip the spec. Build a working prototype using Claude Code instead. Step 2: Internal Launch Ship that prototype to all Anthropic engineers immediately. No polish required—just functionality. Step 3: Watch & Listen Track usage religiously. Collect feedback actively. Let real behavior, not opinions, guide decisions. Step 4: Data-Driven Prioritization - High usage + positive feedback → roadmap priority - Low engagement or complaints → back to iteration This "prototype-first product shaping" flips traditional product development on its head. Instead of guessing what users want, they're measuring what users actually use. The beauty? They're dogfooding their own tool to build their own tool. The feedback loop is immediate, honest, and impossible to ignore. The takeaway: Your best product decisions come from real user behavior, not theoretical frameworks. Sometimes the fastest way to validate an idea isn't a survey or interview—it's a working prototype.

Facilitation hack. Prepare them for the post-workshop shock. Workshops are amazing universes where magical things happen that ideally leave everyone with the feeling of having been part of a transformative experience. Even less intense workshops often create a feeling of belonging. They typically, if facilitated well, also create a feeling of energy and motivation to get going with the ideas and transformation to address burning issues. However, what follows is similar to a reverse culture shock phenomenon. The participants return to their working environment of origin, where they meet colleagues who have not spent their time in a parallel universe but continue living in a problem-ridden daily. Furthermore, they might also envy the experience, especially when the "enlightened reformers" bragged about the workshop, causing subtle and often unconscious behaviors to dismiss the new ideas. In short, participants face resistance, and their excitement is quickly killed by the everyday blues, often as soon as the following working day. As a consequence, the intervention becomes irrelevant for the most part. I have heard this story so often that I have decided to make it an integral part of my workshops to prepare the participants for the post-workshop shock. I make space to raise their awareness that this is likely to happen and have them share their worries and ideas for how to work around it. This doesn't necessarily solve the issue, but it helps prepare them for what they might experience. It also makes them realize that it is their responsibility to carefully translate their insights, experience, and energy onto others and gives them a chance to exchange ways for they can do that as a group and individuals. Since I did that, my standard check-ins a few weeks, months later, are significantly more positive and often show that the workshop bore some fruits in the rest of the company and organization. So, remember, as wonderful as a workshop can be, it is a parallel universe to the participants' every day. Our task is to help them prepare for a potential shock when they re-enter the real world, thereby increasing the chances of successful transfer of insights and ideas. #facilitationhack #facilitation #facilitationskills #humandynamics

If your team’s not speaking up… you’ve already lost. Not ideas. Not productivity. Trust. And once trust is gone? Innovation stalls. Collaboration dies. People check out—or walk out. The fix? Not another tool. Not another policy. But something far more powerful: Psychological safety. It’s not a “nice to have.” It’s the hidden engine behind every high-performing team. Here’s how you build it—one conversation, one decision, one moment at a time 👇🏼 1. Lead with curiosity, not judgment. ↳ “Help me understand…” beats “Why’d you do that?” 2. Admit your own mistakes. ↳ Model the safety you want others to feel. 3. Give credit generously. ↳ Shine the light on others—often and publicly. 4. Respond, don’t react. ↳ Let people tell the truth without fear of fallout. 5. Invite pushback. ↳ Ask: “What am I missing?” 6. Remove silent punishments. ↳ Reward honesty, not just agreement. 7. Normalize “I don’t know.” ↳ That’s how real learning starts. 8. Make feedback feel safe. ↳ Correct with care. Aim for growth, not shame. 9. Start meetings with check-ins. ↳ Connection before conversation. 10. Celebrate courage, not just results. ↳ Applaud the voice, not just the victory. Because when people feel safe, they don’t hold back. They contribute. They challenge. They soar. If you want your team to rise—safety comes first. Which one of these 10 will you lead with this week? ♻️ Share this with your network if it resonates. ☝️ And follow Stuart Andrews for more insights like this.

The deeper our understanding of systems, the more wisely and skillfully we can impact sustainable change and improvement. Way back in the 1940's, General Systems Theory showed us that systems could NOT be fully understood by breaking them apart and analyzing the pieces. Instead, systems had to be observed as wholes ,seen in context, with attention to how the parts interacted, evolved, and influenced each other over time. This shift in thinking (from analysis to synthesis) changed everything. It taught us that organizations, supply chains, customer experiences, and even simple production lines are not collections of isolated parts. They are dynamic, interconnected living systems. And THIS perspective is what's needed to guide Lean thinking and Lean practices. Lean is not just about cutting waste or speeding up production. At its core, Lean is about seeing the system- how value flows (or fails to flow) across people, processes, and technology. It’s about understanding that the performance of a system depends far more on the interactions between the parts than on the performance of any single part. When Lean asks us to "go to the Gemba", to the real place where work happens, it is inviting us to observe with curiosity, to understand and not judge or measure. And when Lean guides us to improve processes, it teaches us to create flow and pull systems instead of pushing work downstream blindly...and it teaches us to seek out the communication and collaboration practices that create or prevent flow and pull. When Lean practitioners don't 'get' systems thinking, three major things happen: 1️⃣ They focus too much on local improvements. They optimize one department, one process, or one step but unknowingly hurt the system as a whole. 2️⃣ They treat symptoms, not causes. Without a systems view, people often chase the obvious issues (like bottlenecks or rework) without seeing the underlying system conditions that are creating those issues. 3️⃣ They miss the bigger opportunity. Lean isn't just about making tasks quicker, it's about redesigning how value flows across the organization. Without systems thinking, efforts stay tactical, fragmented, and superficial and real transformation never happens. Systems thinking reminds us: 👉 Optimizing one piece without regard to the whole can cause greater problems elsewhere. 👉 True improvement happens when we see the relationships and dependencies , not just the activities. 👉 To create sustainable change, we must first understand how the system behaves, not just how it is designed. Why is it so hard for many organizations to think in systems, not silos? Is it anything to do with the people/leader traits highlighted below? Leave your thoughts in the comments and lets chat! 🙏

One of my client companies recently made a bold shift: They replaced their Engagement KPI with a Trust KPI. And it’s one of the smartest moves I’ve seen. Why? Because trust is not a byproduct of engagement - it’s the precondition. 📚 Research backs this up: A meta-analysis by De Jong et al. (2016) found that team trust is a strong predictor of performance, especially in high-interdependence teams. Yet we treat trust like something we either have or don’t. 👉But trust isn’t a mood but rather a design decision. To start with, we need to understand 3 types of trust: 1. Cognitive 2. Affective 3. Swift Most leaders focus on cognitive or affective trust - built over time. But there’s a third type they don’t know about: Swift Trust. 📍Swift Trust forms quickly in temporary, remote, or fast-moving teams. It doesn’t require deep familiarity, it requires structure. And here’s how leaders can engineer it: ✔️ Start with clearly defined roles and expectations ✔️ Align fast around shared goals and purpose ✔️ Create quick wins that build early credibility ✔️ Model openness and ask for input from day one ✔️ Name the importance of trust explicitly In other words, trust isn’t “earned slowly” in every context. It can be catalyzed intentionally if you know how. That’s what I’m helping this client do: not just educate about trust but build it inside the team with psychological safety and my method, one behavior and ritual at a time. Because when trust becomes a designed feature, not an accidental outcome - performance, inclusion, and engagement follow. P.S.: Which type of trust is most alive in your team right now?

𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘜𝘯𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦𝘭𝘺 𝘚𝘰𝘶𝘳𝘤𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘚𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘬𝘦𝘥 𝘢 𝘞𝘰𝘳𝘭𝘥 𝘓𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘉𝘶𝘴𝘪𝘯𝘦𝘴𝘴 𝘐𝘥𝘦𝘢 2 days ago, we had the chance to visit Shokz Technologies in Shenzhen. The consumer headphones industry is a competitive one with major players like Apple, Bose, Sennheiser, Xiaomi and many more. In order to stand out, they need a standout product/strategy. In 2007, they became the pioneers for the use of bone conduction technology in consumer headphones. But did you know where they got the idea from? It turns out, bone conduction technology was not new and it's been used in several more specialised domains. They got the idea from firefighters, who wear earpieces to receive instructions, but simultaneously allow them to listen out for cries for help. That made them think... Why shouldn't that idea be used for earpieces for runners? That will allow them to listen to music while keeping them safe by listening out for traffic signals. Since then, they've also become a multi-billion business globally, and have since taken their technology to manufacturing hearing aids. They also currently hold over 5,100 patents. This is a picture of me with Shokz's founder and CEO Kingsun Chen. He shared in his address to our Singaporean delegates that betting on Bone Conduction technology was the key factor in the company's success. The story of Shokz illustrates that our best ideas do not necessary come from obvious sources. This is a classic case of 𝗖𝗿𝗼𝘀𝘀-𝗗𝗼𝗺𝗮𝗶𝗻 𝗔𝗱𝗮𝗽𝘁𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻. From my personal experiences, we can develop this skill by: • Being curious and keeping an open mind • Apply pattern recognition by asking "How is X like Y?" • Take small bets by experimentation This is key to creativity and innovation to stay ahead in the age of AI. My own example is how I studied storytelling techniques of a National Geographic documentarian and applying the structure to craft my keynotes. Where do you get your best random ideas from? #WholeHearted #Innovation

🎨One of the most critical skills to build 0 to 1 products both at a startup or inside a large company is the art of prototyping.🎨 I call it art and less of science because it involves a lot of creativity to get to a working model with the least amount of time and cost and there is quite literally no standard repeatable process. Great product managers and product companies however have managed to create the right prototypes repeatedly rather scrappily by truly understanding what really matters the most. One of my favourite examples is of how Google Books was born. In 2002, Larry Page began wondering if it was possible to make every published book ever published searchable online. As the cofounder, Larry could have assigned a team of engineers to the problem and given them a nice budget. Instead he got a digital camera, rigged it to a tripod and set the contraption up on a table in his office. He pointed the camera at the table, turned on a metronome to pace his movement and starting snapping pictures whilst Marissa Mayer turned the page. Based on this crude prototype, they were able to estimate what it took to digitise a book. Google Books was born. There are numerous such examples. ✴️Airbnb was born over a design conference weekend when the founders put up their single airbed on a static website and got some guests validating their hypothesis. ✴️Netflix knew it was possible to rent dvds over mail because they could mail themselves a dvd and it came back to them intact. ✴️Ubers prototype was users would text their location and behind the scenes they used phone calls to despatch black town cars. ✴️The iPhone’s very first prototype was a phone module rigged to an iPod. If one were to abstract the key guiding philosophies that go into making great prototypes, it would be 👉 Not thinking of scale first. This is what kills most new products. Instead of validating value with a few people and then think of gradually scaling, big companies especially think scale first and inevitably spend a monstrous amount of time to build an unproven hypothesis at scale to immediately deliver business value. Inevitably when it fails, management has no further motivation to pursue given the huge cost already incurred. 👉Use existing infrastructure to quickly put together something to prove the concept works and users love it. Almost often no custom tech solutions are built but rather reusing existing solutions to make a scrappy contraption. 👉 A sense of urgency. Almost often these scrappy contraptions were put together in a very short time frame to quickly test the hypothesis. A word of caution here is that these guiding principles may not work for all industries say such as health care where human life is at stake. So be mindful of absolute non negotiables when defining your prototypes. #productmanagement #prototyping #productcraft #zerotoone

You're not a designer, but everyone should think like one. This $20 book will change how you approach every business interaction. The Design of Everyday Things taught me why most businesses leak money - and it has nothing to do with strategy. Here's the breakdown: 1. Your communication needs a mental map. Norman's "conceptual models": Your audience builds a picture of how things work. Give them the right picture upfront. When information is laid out like a table-of-contents first, people remember 17% more of it. In beginners, recall jumped 42%. McKinsey uses this religiously - tell them what you're going to tell them, tell them, then tell them what you told them. 2. People create desire paths - so pave them. You know those dirt trails cutting across campus lawns? Same thing happens in meetings. Everyone scans for the bottom line first. Eye-tracking found recruiters decide on resumes in under 8 seconds - but only when the headline was crystal-clear. So flip your approach: Start with the outcome, then explain why. Give people the shortcut they're already taking. 3. First impressions happen faster than thought. Norman's "visceral level": People react emotionally before logic kicks in. Princeton researchers found it takes just 100 milliseconds for the brain to lock in a judgment. If they can't instantly see themselves in your message, you've already lost. Make their problem impossible to miss in that first glance. 4. Design for your worst-case audience. Someone checking email during your pitch. Someone who's half-listening. Assume your slide competes with an inbox - because 9 out of 10 people multitask during virtual meetings. Norman's constraints principle: make misunderstanding impossible. Headers that summarize everything below. The distracted executive should still get your point. 5. Eliminate unnecessary decisions. Norman's "knowledge in the world": Don't make people think - make the right choice obvious. Any choice that takes longer than 100 milliseconds to confirm stops feeling automatic - and conversions fall. Amazon created one-click buying. Apple standardized on USB-C. Trader Joe's limits to 4,000 SKUs versus 30,000-50,000 elsewhere - and generates 4-5x more revenue per square foot. — I spent years thinking design was about making things pretty. Norman showed me it's about making things work. The difference between professionals who struggle and professionals who scale. Stop making people think harder. Start making their lives easier.

I spent the day with academicians reflecting on a simple but important question: Are we teaching subjects, or are we shaping thinking? What became clear through the dialogue is that education today needs more than incremental change. It needs reimagination. From curriculum to pedagogy to assessments, every layer must evolve in the context of Design Thinking and AI. Design Thinking, in my view, is not a tool or a course. It is a shift in worldview. When the way we see changes, knowledge reorganises. When knowledge changes, capability evolves. And when capability evolves, outcomes transform. Without this shift in thinking, any change we make will remain superficial. One of the core gaps in our system is this: - We focus on content, but not on purpose - Students learn subjects, but not why they are learning them - Problem solving is taught, but problem framing is not Education must move from content delivery to problem orientation. AI now accelerates this shift. For decades, education has been centred around answers. Today, answers are easily available. What is becoming scarce is the ability to ask the right questions. This changes the role of education fundamentally: - From answers to questions - From memory to thinking - From linear learning to multi-dimensional problem solving It also requires a rethink of assessments. Not just evaluating answers, but evaluating how students frame problems and approach solutions. At the same time, we must be conscious of the risks. Easy access to knowledge can weaken cognitive depth. Foundations matter. Concepts matter. Thinking cannot be outsourced. The balance is clear: - Human for thinking - AI for doing Another important insight is that change in education cannot be driven through isolated interventions. It requires sustained effort, dialogue, and a structured approach to transformation. Institutions will have to identify their friction points, prioritise them, and work through them over time. What encouraged me most was the intent across institutions. There is openness to rethink, to experiment, and to evolve. The opportunity ahead is significant. To move from teaching subjects to shaping thinkers, from solving problems to defining them, and from producing graduates to building agenda setters. That, to me, is the real purpose of education in an AI-first world. Intellect Design Arena Ltd School of Design Thinking Purple Fabric #DesignThinking #8012FinTechDesignCenter #AIinEducation #FutureOfLearning #HigherEducation #ReimagineEducation #Innovation #Learning #Leadership #DigitalTransformation

When I started coaching in 2007, I learnt that there are 5 key disciplines you need to master to be a good coach: Credibility, Affinity, Navigation, Spirit and Individual Focus. 17 years later, having worked with clients across North America, Europe and Asia, as a coach to both leadership teams and individuals, I find that my early learnings stand true. There is one more element I’d like to add to the list which I always incorporate into my coaching and facilitation - FUN. You want people to actually enjoy what they are doing. If you see these photographs from the 2-day Strategy Meet that I ran for the Deals Team of PwC India recently, you will notice that people are enjoying themselves. They worked very hard for the two days that they were with me, but we laughed and had fun along the way. And that played a role in keeping them engaged throughout. I’d love to hear your thoughts on the above, as well as any other skills you feel are essential for a successful facilitator. If you’re curious about the 5 core disciplines, here’s a bit more detail: ✅ Credibility is about being viewed as a trusted expert on the subject or area in which you are coaching. It needs to be established even before you meet the participants. ✅ Affinity is about making connections between what you are trying to teach, the group and yourself. In more simple language, it’s about actually getting your audience to like you. Affinity is something that is built along the way, including outside of the formal sessions. ✅ Navigation is about guiding participants through the coaching process so that it is delivered seamlessly, completed on time and achieves its objectives. Navigation, you only know at the end whether you’ve been able to successfully achieve. I’ve learned over time that you shouldn’t stress too much about the timings of the individual sections of an offsite though. If people are more engaged in some bits, let them go on longer. And vice versa. Also, I always try and ensure my participants get at least a 15-minute break after every 90 minutes of engagement. ✅ Individual focus is about empathising with the learner and then adapting the experience so that their specific needs are met, in the context of their personal or organisational objectives. Individual focus is key to keeping people engaged. It answers the question, ‘What’s in it for me?’ ✅ Spirit is about generating an energetic atmosphere that is conducive to learning. It is this energy and buzz that participants feed off which keeps them with you till the end. You could argue that fun is a subset of it, but I think it’s important enough to have its own separate mention. The high energy group photograph in this post, which I take at all my workshops, doesn't just make for a wonderful memory. It also symbolises the spirit of our engagement. #coaching #facilitation #fun