{"id":409,"date":"2010-09-19T18:12:32","date_gmt":"2010-09-20T01:12:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ghostinthepixel.com\/?p=409"},"modified":"2010-09-19T18:24:48","modified_gmt":"2010-09-20T01:24:48","slug":"dmi-workshop-on-decision-makingconcept-evaluation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ghostinthepixel.com\/?p=409","title":{"rendered":"DMI Workshop summary"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last week I attended a 2-day workshop sponsored by The Design Mgmnt Inst (DMI) on improving our decision-making and concept evaluation skills<\/a>, led by Jeremy Alexis, of IIT Inst of Design, and held on MSFT campus in Redmond (Bldg 92, which is the Visitor\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Center). <\/p>\n

Overall not bad, expected more in-depth discussion but got a few nice golden nuggets to add to my arsenal of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153design thinking\u00e2\u20ac\u009d tools. Also some great networking with like-minded senior designers\/leaders (incl folks from MSFT XBOX\/games studio, HP, Kraft, Mattel, and a nuclear engineering firm!), and we indulged in some \u00e2\u20ac\u0153group therapy\u00e2\u20ac\u009d sessions about day-to-day \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Big Design\u00e2\u20ac\u009d stresses in corporate settings :-) Whew!<\/p>\n

I’ve posted pix of whiteboard notes from group discussions and team exercises here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n

Day 1<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00c2\u00b7 Distinguished btwn \u00e2\u20ac\u0153debating ambiguous ideas\u00e2\u20ac\u009d VS \u00e2\u20ac\u0153evaluating viable alternatives\u00e2\u20ac\u009d. Often we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re wondering aloud in meetings, when we should be deciding among options against consensual criteria.<\/p>\n

\u00c2\u00b7 Good decisions involve a steady beat of reflection\/questioning from start to finish, not \u00e2\u20ac\u0153shoot first ask questions later\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

\u00c2\u00b7 3 Levels of decisions: Casual (instinctive, low impact\/risk), Conscious (more analytical complexity, guided by policies\/standards\/requirements), Rigorous (rarely done by designers, huge strategic impacts, high risk, wicked)<\/p>\n

\u00c2\u00b7 General process fwk for decisions: Create a basis for decision, Evaluate options for the decision, Synthesize options and make decisions<\/p>\n

\u00c2\u00b7 Key tools: Decision statement (like a mission statement but for a decision), Have a point of view (designers must have a POV to have impact\/influence, not just be bland\/neutral)<\/p>\n

\u00c2\u00b7 Constraints (musts) vs Objectives (shoulds)<\/p>\n

\u00c2\u00b7 Decision Trees as a graphical\/numerical tool for gauging the better decisions. Lists out decisions and uncertainties with branching paths for each possibility, with numeric probabilities assigned. Helps provide some numerical objectivity but of course all interpretive.<\/p>\n

\u00c2\u00b7 Leadership: involves being an impartial, considerate decision-maker, someone who removes ambiguity and wages influence accordingly.<\/p>\n

Day 2<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00c2\u00b7 Concepts should be evaluated by what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s desirable\/feasible\/viable (standard triangle)<\/p>\n

\u00c2\u00b7 Avoid doing the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153number of stickies\u00e2\u20ac\u009d on concepts after a brainstorm; instead ask hypothetically which would you do if had a million bucks and unlimited resources (moonshot), which inspires the most passion. Forces a discussion of values\/principles\/goals, which may have evolved due to concepts generated!<\/p>\n

\u00c2\u00b7 When clustering concepts from a brainstorm, do it by functionality (what it does), not what it is (verb vs noun or adjective, basically)<\/p>\n

\u00c2\u00b7 Focus on how strongly functionally related, meaningful clusters > pruning\/sifting towards a compact set of primary potentials<\/p>\n

\u00c2\u00b7 Solution Architecture: individual ideas > directives > system name (hierarchy of elements basically, small to wide scopes)<\/p>\n

\u00c2\u00b7 Six elements of a business model: customers, offerings, risks, economics, competitors, capabilities<\/p>\n

\u00c2\u00b7 Key aspects of a killer concept: Emerges from multiple diverse sources (not just one person), Core hypotheses upset corporate process\/controversial, Ask how your competitor would handle it, Tends to violate customer orthodoxy\/common sense, Hypotheses make folks feel uncomfortable, Not just constrained by costs\/risks\/time<\/p>\n

\u00c2\u00b7 Multiple \u00e2\u20ac\u0153filters\u00e2\u20ac\u009d to evaluate concepts: Strategic alignment > Market oppty > Capability to deliver > Worth the pay off > And is it \u00e2\u20ac\u0153elegant\u00e2\u20ac\u009d solution? (Pencil vs Space Pen)<\/p>\n

Overall<\/strong><\/p>\n

I like some of the tools and concepts introduced, much of them are quite familiar from past classes\/books or common sense from a business or general design sense. Nothing earth-shattering brilliant, but nice tools to keep in mind. Much more moving towards general product development influence, not just \u00e2\u20ac\u0153fixing a broken interface\u00e2\u20ac\u009d or \u00e2\u20ac\u0153make a quick icon\u00e2\u20ac\u009d, towards helping a designer become a veritable leader, trusted in the corporate context.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last week I attended a 2-day workshop sponsored by The Design Mgmnt Inst (DMI) on improving our decision-making and concept evaluation skills, led by Jeremy Alexis, of IIT Inst of Design, and held on MSFT campus in Redmond (Bldg 92, which is the Visitor\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Center). Overall not bad, expected more in-depth discussion but got a … Continue reading “DMI Workshop summary”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_themeisle_gutenberg_block_has_review":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-409","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general-stuff"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghostinthepixel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/409","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghostinthepixel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghostinthepixel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghostinthepixel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghostinthepixel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=409"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghostinthepixel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/409\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":414,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghostinthepixel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/409\/revisions\/414"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghostinthepixel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=409"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghostinthepixel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=409"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghostinthepixel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=409"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}