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Design Thinking Tools and Templates

help project teams innovate and think outside the box with Design Thinking

Design Thinking Process - Empathize, Define, Ideate, Prototype, Test, and Deploy, process improvement methodologies

Thank you for checking out our collection of downloadable Design Thinking tools and templates.

 

Design Thinking is a creative problem-solving approach that encourages the use of deep dive interviewing and other ethnographic research tools to understand the problem through the eyes and experiences of the customer.

 

By framing the problem, the Design team purposely places themselves in the shoes of the customers and employs empathy to create better and more human-centered products, services, and processes.

 

The Design Thinking process has been popularized by key thought leaders such as IDEO, the Stanford d.school, and countless authors.

In our experience, Design Thinking helps people to reach their fullest potential by apply empathy to understand who they are serving, and how best to exceed that person’s needs.

 

If you want to learn more about Design Thinking, please visit our Design Thinking Certification.

Design Thinking Training, continuous improvement certifications

Learn the core concepts of design thinking through the Design Thinking Foundations class.

 

This course will help expose the learner to various design thinking tools and mental models – all with the emphasis on innovating through creative problem-solving.

Common Design Thinking Tools and Templates

Can’t find what you are looking for? Try viewing all our continuous improvement tools or searching for the specific tool below.

Downloadable Design Thinking Tools and Templates

Design Thinking - Design Sprint - A Design Sprint is a 5-day event that uses Design Thinkinging to creatively solve complex problems.

Design Sprint

A common framework for applying Design Thinking to solve a problem is use of a Design Sprint. The Design Sprint seeks to solve big problems in a rapid fashion, over a week's timeline.

design challenge statement

Challenge Statement

Inspire the team to solve the problem by framing the challenge using a Challenge Statement.

Project Team Canvas

Team Canvas

Get everyone on the same page. Whether it is a project team or a committee, everyone needs to know what the goal is and why the work is important

Customer Journey Map

View your processes through the eyes of your customers to better understand their experiences.

Deep Dive Interviews - Interviewing for empathy

Deep Dive Interview

Deep Dive Interviewing engages customers in conversation and storytelling to get to the heart of the customer's experience.

Fly on the Wall Observation Tool used to document notes and findings from in the field observations

Fly on the Wall Observation

Exercise the power of observation to understand how operators and customers interact.

Empathy Mapping Design Thinking Process to unpack customer interviews

Empathy Mapping

Unpack the customer's story - what was said, what actions occurred, and go further to assess what the customer was thinking and feeling.

Customer Personas

View your processes through the eyes of your customers to better understand their experiences.

Extreme users

Extreme Users

The User Needs Statement is an actionable problem statement that summarizes who the user is, what the user’s specific needs is, and why that needs is important.

User Needs Statement

User Needs Statement

The User Needs Statement is an actionable problem statement that summarizes who the user is, what the user’s specific needs is, and why that needs is important.

How Might We Statement

How Might We Statement

The How Might We (HMW) questions are short challenge questions that are representative of the user’s needs.

Customer Wins Matrix

WINS Matrix

The WINS Matrix allows the Design Team to prioritize their ideas based on fit with the customer's needs and How Might We Statements.

Customer Radar Example

Customer's Radar

The Customer's Radar diagram helps to arrange the customer's priorities, goals, and motivations by level of importance.

Customer 2x2 matrix example

Customer 2x2

Brainstorming sessions help individuals and/or teams generate a list of creative ideas.

Mind Mapping

Brainstorming and Mind Mapping

Brainstorming and mind mapping helps individuals and/or teams generate and organize a list of creative ideas.

Thumbnail Sketching

Thumbnail Sketching

As they say, "A picture is worth a thousand words." Using thumbnail sketches, illustrate your ideas and seek feedback.

Storyboard-Layout-a-grid

StoryBoards and Polling Posters

Polling Posters are used to illustrate the Designer's concept, while combining 'dot-voting' to collect votes on key features and top ideas.

Determining what to rapid prototype

Rapid, Rough Prototyping

Prototyping takes concepts from paper to reality. Using simple materials, the Designer creates a mock-up of what the solution will look like.

Design Thinking Role Playing template

Role Playing

After the team has created a working prototype it may be necessary to trail the idea internally through role playing.

Feedback Grid Template

Customer Feedback

The Customer Feedback Grid helps the team to capture constructive feedback once they have presented their ideas, using storytelling.

User Acceptance Testing Worksheet

User Acceptance Testing

During the Test Drive, customers will interact with the new product or service, while verbalizing their experience. This input can be used to determine if the solution is acceptable.

Project Business Case Canvas template

Business Case Canvas

The Business Case Canvas helps you to convey why the project should be selected and prioritized, all on one page.

Design Thinking Service Blueprint

Service Blueprint

This ideal state exercise creates a forward looking process that paints a picture for how things will ideally work in the future.

Minimum Viable Product or Service

Minimum Viable Product

The Minimum Viable Product (MVP) or Service (MVS) is a summary of the Design Team's recommendation, prototyping results, and next steps.

Let's partner to bring about radical and lasting change. Check out our game-changing continuous process improvement consulting services and solutions.

Solutions and Services for Sustained Process Improvement

Strategic Planning & Goal Setting

Support in designing and deploying your organization’s strategy.

Service offerings include:

  • Mission, Vision, Values Creation
  • Scenarios-Based Planning
  • 3-yr and 1-yr Plan – Annual Goal Setting
  • Competitive Landscape
  • Customer Personas
  • Strategy Activation (Catchball)

Professional Training and Certification

Provide work-class professional training, certification, and learning experiences.

Certification offerings include:

  • Design Thinking
  • Lean Six Sigma (White – Black Belt)
  • Change Leadership
  • A3 Thinking
  • Project Sponsorship
  • Project Management Basics

Project and Portfolio Management

Deploy a structured framework for organizing, prioritizing, and executing projects.

Service offerings include:

  •  Project Funnel Development
  • Project Selection
  • Project Governance
  • Project Scorecard
  • Project Planning
  • Rapid Improvement Events
Green Dot Mission, Vision, and Values

For a list of the services that the Green Dot Group provides, please reference the attached Service Offerings List.

Want to learn more about more about process improvement tools and templates, then click here. 

 

If you don’t see something you are looking for, please reach out to us.

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