Design Thinking and the Top-5 "Moments of Stark Terror"
As part of my book project on Design Thinking, my co-author and I are thinking of including a section on the “Moments of Stark Terror” on a design project. To build a representative list of these moments, we reached out to ten experienced practitioners, asking them for a list and for a couple of favorite stories. The stories will require a little editing (and formal permission), but here are the top moments that came up.
1. The self-doubt moment.
This is when it dawns on you: “I just promised WHAT? By WHEN? With only BLANK resources to get it done?” Or the self-doubt might show up later in the project (see moment #5, below), but it will rear its head at some point.
This is when it dawns on you: “I just promised WHAT? By WHEN? With only BLANK resources to get it done?” Or the self-doubt might show up later in the project (see moment #5, below), but it will rear its head at some point.
2. The ethnography results moment.
You are fresh from reviewing the customer journey and other ethnographic research inputs, with a crystal clear sense of the latent need you can address. Then the executive sponsor sees the sample of 11 customers, none of which appears similar to any others, and she says, “Are we going to make decisions based on that?”
You are fresh from reviewing the customer journey and other ethnographic research inputs, with a crystal clear sense of the latent need you can address. Then the executive sponsor sees the sample of 11 customers, none of which appears similar to any others, and she says, “Are we going to make decisions based on that?”
3. The morning after (the brainstorm) moment.
A typical brainstorming process generates at least 100 ideas (idea-lets, really, since they are often expressed in fragments that can fit on a post-it note), sometimes more than 500. When participants in the process step back and reflect on the results, they are very likely to think (or say), “Interesting, but I don’t think we discovered our next $500M line of business.” They may also think, “We’ve had 80% of these ideas before, and the other 20% are pie-in-the-sky.”
A typical brainstorming process generates at least 100 ideas (idea-lets, really, since they are often expressed in fragments that can fit on a post-it note), sometimes more than 500. When participants in the process step back and reflect on the results, they are very likely to think (or say), “Interesting, but I don’t think we discovered our next $500M line of business.” They may also think, “We’ve had 80% of these ideas before, and the other 20% are pie-in-the-sky.”
4. The short list moment.
This moment occurs when you have created three innovative combinations of elements, shaping them into new offerings that are ready to be explore in cooperation with customers (i.e., customer co-creation sessions). You show the three alternative concepts to the executive sponsor, and he says, flatly, “What else have you got?” As if, by reviewing the 15 or 20 concepts that didn’t make the cut, he can fix it.
This moment occurs when you have created three innovative combinations of elements, shaping them into new offerings that are ready to be explore in cooperation with customers (i.e., customer co-creation sessions). You show the three alternative concepts to the executive sponsor, and he says, flatly, “What else have you got?” As if, by reviewing the 15 or 20 concepts that didn’t make the cut, he can fix it.
5. The debut moment.
This moment occurs right before the project goes live for the first time, usually during the learning launch. Sometimes it is the executive sponsor who wants to abort immediately before take-off, and sometimes it is the team that says, “We are NOT ready.”
This moment occurs right before the project goes live for the first time, usually during the learning launch. Sometimes it is the executive sponsor who wants to abort immediately before take-off, and sometimes it is the team that says, “We are NOT ready.”
How do these match your perceptions? After finalizing our list, we will propose the best way(s) to manage your emotions — and your team — during these moments of stark terror.
