At Symph, we believe that innovation and collaboration are the keys to unlocking the full potential of a thriving economy. Last week, Symph conducted a highly productive Consultative Design Thinking with the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) in the Philippines. The event was a hybrid session, with participants joining online and in-person.
A Design Thinking is an intensive, fast-paced, and collaborative process that brings together diverse stakeholders to solve complex problems, create innovative solutions, and validate them with real users. However, for this particular engagement with the DBM, we will be focusing on a customized Design Thinking process, without the prototype and validation stage. This enabled us to concentrate more on understanding the users' needs, empathizing with their challenges, and ideating initial possible solutions. Ultimately, gathering pain points from the stakeholders and translating it into definitive actions items.
The day began with our experts delivering Lightning Talks, during which the audience captured "How Might We" (HMW) questions using physical and online post-it notes. Participants were then grouped to discuss the challenges they identified and placed in the HMW framework.
A snapshot of the virtual HMW board for the online session
An in-person stakeholder writing their HMWs
Next, participants started grouping ideas into categories, looking for overlaps or duplicates to create the most useful problem mapping. They revised or changed the categories as needed to ensure a comprehensive understanding of the challenges faced by DBM.
Participants then voted for their top three HMW questions, which were used to find inspiration for potential solutions. The teams regrouped and engaged in an Inspiration-Finding session to identify innovative approaches to address the top-voted HMWs.
Groups discussing and mapping the HMWs
To further stimulate creative thinking, we facilitated a Crazy 8's exercise, followed by a Solution Sketch session, where participants visually represented their ideas.
A solution ready for voting, posted on the wall
Day two began with Intersecting Sections, where all solution sketches were posted on the wall, and participants had unlimited votes to place on the elements or components within the designs they found most compelling.
Voting session for the components of Solution Sketches
After reviewing the winning scenes, the teams regrouped and developed a cohesive solution by weaving the different winning scenes into one final solution sketch. This process encouraged collaboration and ensured that the best ideas from each team were incorporated into the final solutions.
Both online and offline groups presented their final solution sketches to the entire audience. Everyone scored the presentations to determine the importance of each solution.
Representative from the Online participants during the presentation
Representative from the In-person participants during the presentation
Overall, the Consultative Design Thinking with the Department of Budget and Management in the Philippines was a success. The hybrid session format allowed for seamless collaboration between online and in-person participants, while the structured approach to identifying challenges and ideating solutions fostered innovation and creativity.
Need help in facilitating design sprints for your team? Talk to us and we will see how we can help.
