The following is a collection of methodologies varying from Design Thinking to Lean Startup that I use in the creation of business models, startups and digital products. Some of the methodologies shown here are open source and widely available online. Some others were developed by me using combined methodologies such as the Business Design Jam. Contact me if you have any questions.
Ideate / Validate
By combining the business model canvas and St. Gallen’s Business Model Navigator, Together, we analyze and challenge your existing business model and work with you to develop one that matches your needs, regardless whether you are an established company or a startup. The workshop includes working through case studies, visually engaging examples and hands-on exercises.
OUTCOME
- Sketch your existing business model and value proposition
- Assess against best practices
- Map the environment and competition
- Generate improvements and new models
- Develop clear customer understanding
- Reduce risk of failures through systematic testing
- Implement in any business environment
The Value Proposition Canvas (VPC) was developed as an add-on to the Business Model Canvas describing customer segments and value proposition in more detail. It provides a clear structure for the development of the customer usage of a market segment. This workshop is designed to help you uncover the main benefits your customers can expect from your product or service and answer a fundamental question relevant and critical for many businesses: If I am your ideal prospect, why should I buy from you rather than your competitors?
OUTCOME
- Formulation and understanding of your value proposition
- Concrete action steps on how to communicate and implement your value proposition
We depart from the idea that people “hire” products and services to get a job done. To that respect, we use a technique called “job mapping” to break down the task the customer wants to be done into a series of concrete process steps. By deconstructing a job from beginning to end, we get a complete view of all the points at which a customer might desire more help from a product or service—namely, at each step in the job.
OUTCOME
- A deeper understanding of the mental model that guides our decision making.
- Defining a clearer understanding of who your real competition is and the job(s) your product was hired to do
The Value Proposition Canvas (VPC) was developed as an add-on to the Business Model Canvas describing customer segments and value proposition in more detail. It provides a clear structure for the development of the customer usage of a market segment. This workshop is designed to help you uncover the main benefits your customers can expect from your product or service and answer a fundamental question: If I am your ideal prospect, why should I buy from you rather than your competitors?
Ever since Eric Ries published Lean Startup book, there has been a loyal following for its proposed methods. The pragmatic focus on rapid failure with simple prototypes has been mistaken for a “trial-and-error” procedure which is actually far from the truth. The Lean Startup method is a guided group of experiments conducted with the purpose of proving or disproving assumptions. It is done in an iterative, cheap and fast way to get a better idea of a product-market fit, before spending a lot of time, money and effort building a product nobody wants.
OUTCOME
- Training on how to implement Lean Validation methods
- How to do preliminary customer discovery
- Formulate assumptions
- Track experiments using a Lean Validation Board
Build
We use storyboarding to build a sequential narrative of the user’s interaction with a product. By using such a narrative, we can make early ideas concrete and helps with the feature articulation. At the same time, it provides a reality check of the interactions, coherence, and flow of the product and the user. In this workshop, we explore different techniques and scenarios that can be used to construct the narrative, based on specific user flows.
Sketching is a core skill and tool of any designer. It is a quick and cheap way to ideate, develop and iterate on possible design solutions, both alone and with a group.
We will take a closer look at when and how to use sketching in the design process, how you to make your sketches communicate more clearly and efficiently and how to run a collaborative sketching session with a group of people. We will start with basic sketching techniques and build up the pace through a mix of theory, exercises, practice sessions and group critiques.
OUTCOME
- When to use sketching in the design process
- How to decide on the right level of fidelity for your sketches
- Sketching detailed screen designs
- Sketching interactions and transitions
- Labelling and annotating your sketches
- How to run a sketching session with your team
- Tips and tricks to enhance your sketches
Business Design combines traditional business consulting methodologies with design thinking methods to create sustainable business models based on the human-centered design principles. In a business design jam, we improvise without extensive preparation just like musicians do in a jam session. The idea is to come up with products/services grounded on feasible business models on a few hours.
A Design Jam is a one-day workshop that brings together Designers, Developers, and Entrepreneurs, to solve a problem and build a prototype in a day. This workshop focuses on the creation of a prototype based on pre-determined ideas. It not only takes into consideration the making of the prototype(s) but also it includes other complementary techniques such as storyboarding, customer journey mapping and role-play.
A Product Design Sprint (invented by Google Ventures) is a 5-phase exercise which uses design thinking practices to reduce the inherent risks in successfully bringing products to market. A Product Design Sprint serves to align the entire team to aim their efforts to clearly defined goals. Sprints are useful starting points when kicking off a new feature, workflow, product, business or solving problems of an existing product. The Product Design Sprint consists of 5 phases (typically days), starting with design thinking and ending with a user-tested prototype.
Branding is a complex and often misunderstood activity by many people. In today’s world branding has evolved from merely telling stories and communicating messages, to be an active part of the lives of people. Such is the case of companies like Facebook, Twitter, Airbnb and the likes. People are no longer seduced by messages, but they want to know what the brand can do for them. Furthermore, they want to know if the company values are aligned with their own.
This brand workshop is intended for startups and established entrepreneurs to co-create a brand strategy blueprint. The brand blueprint will guide future activities of the organization, uncover a fresh perspective on the offer and market, prioritize audiences and generate inspiring ideas to bring the brand to life.