Understand

To begin the workshop, review the findings from your investigation together as a group. Make the diagram the focal point. Complement it with other artifacts you’ve created, such as personas.

You can also play video clips from interviews to highlight a specific state of mind or pain point. Or, have co-researchers tell stories from the field that bring the experience to life. Portray a rich description of the world as you’ve observed it in a way that is relevant to the organization.

After setting the stage, have the group engage with the diagram. Display it prominently so a group of people can stand around it (Figure 1-2). Alternatively, place it flat on a table for the team to gather around. This has the advantage of offering the chance to sit but still be part of the workshop.

The aim is to immerse the team in the details of the experience by examining the diagram together. If there are many sections to the diagram, break the team up and have each group read through a different part.

Figure 1-2. Display the diagrams prominently for others to gather around.

The workshop is not a presentation for passive consumption. Instead, participants are active contributors. There are several techniques to achieve this:

Write on the diagram

Invite people to comment, correct, or add information directly on the diagram (Figure 1-3). Even if you have a polished graphic version of it, keep it open for feedback. For instance, create empty rows for people to make additions from their own observations.

Foster discussion

Prompt the group with directed thought exercises. For instance, have the group indicate moments of truth, and discuss the relative importance of each touchpoint.

Tell stories

Have everyone in the group recount stories from the field research. What have they heard people saying at each stage in their experience? What evidence can they add?

Empathy doesn’t come from the diagram itself. Rather, the diagram serves as the hub for conversations that create a deeper understanding of an experience. Your job is to make sure that happens. I have found it is usually not difficult to get people talking, and conversations happen naturally.

Creating a diagram is not the ultimate goal. Rather, it is a means to engage others in your organization in a discourse.

Figure 1-3. Invite everyone to contribute to the diagram.

Assess

Next, evaluate the organization’s ability to support the experience at each step. There are several ways to do this quickly:

Grade performance

Have stakeholders give school grades at each division in the diagram. If you are working in multiple groups, compare the grades after you come back together.

Identify moments of truth

Collectively identify points in the experience that are most important to individuals. Give everyone some colored dot stickers, and have them indicate the most critical moments. Discuss the areas that got the most votes.

Vote on importance to the organization

Look at what’s valuable to the organization. Use dot voting to find the most important points in the experience.

For instance, Figure 1-4 shows ratings from two separate groups working on the same section of a diagram in a workshop I once ran. The scale was 1 to 6, with 1 being the best score and 6 being the worst. At one point the scores between breakout groups diverged: one gave a 6, while the other gave a 3. The ensuing conversation was enlightening, building both consensus within the team and empathy for the customer.

Identify Opportunities

Next, look for opportunities. Insight into value creation emerges from the discussion about the diagram. Highlight some of the following aspects:

• Weaknesses.

  Look for points of failure. How can you better support users? When are their needs least satisfied?

• Gaps.

  Find where no support is offered. What pain points are not addressed? What moments of truth are potentially overlooked?

• Redundancies.

  Alignment diagrams point to potential duplication of efforts. Where can you eliminate redundancies?

• Competitors.

  Look at what other providers are doing at each step in the journey. Where are you underperforming? When do they provide more satisfying experiences?

Figure 1-4. In this example, rating performance reveals a discrepancy between two workshop breakout groups.

Then, take a step back and consider the overall experience. Try to see what patterns emerge. For instance, I once consulted a large publisher to improve their relationship with their authors, existing and new. We noticed a trend during the workshop: the publisher didn’t stay in close contact with authors after the manuscript was submitted.

Figure 1-5 shows this pattern overlaid on the experience map. The bars show our relative, estimated level of involvement at each stage. The team then focused on ways to increase contact with authors throughout the journey. How could they make authors feel more connected? How could they create a sense of belonging?

Figure 1-5. A simple pattern emerged from an experience map for authors: their involvement decreased during production phases.

Ideate

Start with a general brainstorming round. I find it helpful to let people get out their initial ideas quickly—even ideas they had before the workshop—so they are open to further ideation later on. Two key phrases you can use in conjunction with each other are:

How might we...?

Shifts attention from the current to the future state. For example, based on the pattern in Figure 1-5, I asked workshop participants, how might we better involve authors throughout the publishing process?

What if...?

Helps change direction and dig deeper. For example, in the above scenario, you might ask, “What if we focus only on face-to-face contact with authors?” Or, “What if we leverage alumni authors to help new authors?”

After collecting initial ideas from the group, conduct directed exercises for more innovative concepts. Three specific approaches I’ve had success with are:

1. Removing barriers

2. Challenging industry assumptions

3. Aspiring to transform

2. Challenge Industry Assumptions

Meaningful change comes from breaking the rules. To help foster a disruptive mindset, identify the prevailing industry assumptions, or those unwritten rules that define an industry.

First, generate industry assumption statements using this formula:

Everyone in the <industry or category> knows that <assumption>....

Then, think of ways to change or overturn each. In his book Disrupt, Luke Williams points to three ways to twist assumptions (which he calls clichés):

• Invert.

  What can be turned upside down? Take the assumption and do the opposite.

• Deny.

  What can you get rid of completely? Try intentionally denying some aspect of the assumption by simply removing it from the equation.

• Scale.

  What is scarce that could be made abundant and vice versa? What is expensive that could be cheap? Challenge assumptions of quantity and scope.

Finally, brainstorm possible solutions that invert, deny, or scale the industry assumption statement (Figure 1-7). Try forcing the group to do each for the most important assumptions.

Here are some examples of game-changing innovations and how they broke industry assumptions:

Figure 1-7. Challenge industry assumptions in a workshop.

• Everyone in the mop category knows that a mop was a one-time purchase, until P&G introduced disposable mops with Swiffer. (Invert)

• Everyone in architecture knows that plumbing, electrical services, and air vents go on the inside of buildings, until the Pompidou Center in Paris put them on the outside (Figure 1-8). (Invert)

• Everyone in the airline industry knows passenger seats are preassigned, until Southwest made seat selection first come, first served. (Deny)

  

  Figure 1-8. The Pompidou Center inverts conventional architecture.

• Everyone in the luxury hotel business knows that offering a wide range of premium services justifies a high price, until Citizen M omitted many of the typical 5-star hotel services so they can offer accommodations at a lower price. (Deny)

• Everyone in the car rental business knows you have to see the customer, rent by the day, and complete a lot of paperwork, until Zipcar made it possible to book online without paper and pay by the hour. (Scale)

• Everyone knows that doctor’s offices treat a wide range of conditions, until CVS’s Minute Clinics treated a limited number of conditions that don’t require a doctor to diagnose. (Scale)

To change the game, you have to first know what game you’re in. This exercise forces your organization to consider doing the opposite of what the rest of the market is doing. This increases your ability to provide unique, meaningful value.

3. Aspire to transform

Products and services that merely connect, delight, and provide positive experience don’t go far enough. What’s needed is a better way to envision users as they may act.

Enter The Ask, a single question outlined by MIT Professor Michael Schrage in his book Who Do You Want Your Customers to Become? Successful innovations, Schrage contends, don’t merely ask users to do something different: they ask them to become someone different.

For example, George Eastman didn’t just invent an affordable, easy-to-use automatic camera at the end of the 19th century; he created photographers. His innovation allowed everyone to do something only trained professionals could previously do.

Through the lens of The Ask, Google is not just a sophisticated search algorithm. It lets everyone become expert researchers. Or consider eBay. The popular trading platform has created a new breed of entrepreneurs.

However, innovations that ask people to become something they don’t want to become typically fail. Take the Segway. What does it ask us to become? A mad, helmeted scientist racing down the sidewalk? Or an authority figure (e.g., a policewoman) extending a few feet above other pedestrians? Or maybe just a weirdo on a scooter (Figure 1-9)?

McDonald’s “super size me” campaign is another example. From a business standpoint it was very effective. For a few extra cents in cost to the organization, customers got what appeared to be a good deal. But it asked them to become unhealthy. That ended up hurting the reputation of the company.

Figure 1-9. The Segway asks us to become someone we don’t want to.

Table 1-2 summarizes the preceding examples. It shows the transformations these products and service had on people, both positive and negative.

Table 1-2. A summary of the transformations selected innovative products and services had on people, both positive and negative.

Kodak	= Camera	> Photographers
Google	= Search engine	> Expert researchers
eBay	= Trading platform	> Entrepreneurs
but...
Segway	= New vehicle	> Weirdo on scooter
Super size	= Value for money	> Unhealthy person

Here is how to apply The Ask to alignment diagrams.

1. At each major division in the diagram, pose the question, Who do we want our customers to become?

2. Collect potential answers and decide which is best.

3. Continue for each major division of the diagram.

4. Finally, brainstorm solutions.

For example, Figure 1-10 shows a service blueprint created by Brandon Schauer. Overlaid on top of it are hypothetical answers to The Ask at each phase in the journey.

The Ask opens up the doors for truly aspirational thinking and transformative innovation. It starts with the outcome, not the solution. Brainstorming around those outcomes generally yields new ideas that stand out from previous exercises in the alignment workshop.

Figure 1-10. An example of a service blueprint shows possible responses to The Ask at each phase.

Prioritize

Use the “feasibility versus value” matrix for an initial prioritization, shown in Figure 1-12. On the one axis, consider how easy an idea is to implement, or its feasibility. On the other, consider its value to the individuals.

The idea is to sort the output of ideation into these quadrants. Once sorted, you can then do subsequent prioritization within each quadrant.

Figure 1-13 shows an example of a prioritization matrix from a workshop I once conducted. We used the window frame for the matrix grid. We quickly identified five high-impact ideas that the engineering team could implement immediately—literally the next day—with no extra funding or resources.

From the obvious things to implement, move to the ideas that are of high value but are harder to implement. These generally take planning, design, and development effort. Select the concepts to develop further that have the most potential and that people feel passionate about. Have a product owner make these selections or do dot voting to get group consensus.

Figure 1-12. A simple prioritization scheme looks at value to the customer and feasibility to deliver.

Figure 1-13. Prioritization of ideas by feasibility and value to the customer can be done on a simple grid.

Articulate

Innovation often comes without epiphany. Don’t expect to be able to recognize an innovation as such immediately. You’ll have to first develop your ideas iteratively.

As quickly as possible, articulate the ideas you want to test. Even within a few hours you can create representations of your leading ideas for evaluation. This “debugs” your thinking and can prove or disprove the value of an idea quickly. Here are a few techniques:

Write scenarios

Write out the details of a concept in prose. Be as detailed as possible in terms of the anticipated experience. Even the simplest of concepts can easily fill multiple pages of text. Let others read and critique it.

Create storyboards

Represent the intended experience in a series of graphic panels. Then critique the idea as a group. Figure 1-14 shows an example of a series of storyboards created during a workshop, with comments from the team surrounding it. In this case, we decided to put one concept on hold based on this initial assessment.

Figure 1-14. Storyboards represent ideas visually.

Draw a flowchart

Quickly express the steps of your idea as steps in a flowchart. This will help you make connections and see all of the moving parts at once.

Sketch ideas

Quickly draw an image of the product or service to share with others.

Wireframe solutions

Create simple greyscale versions of screens for interaction (Figure 1-15).

Build a prototype

With easy-to-use online prototyping tools such as InVision, it’s very simple to simulate working software. You can create a convincing prototype in a matter of hours (Figure 1-16).

Even physical products can be prototyped in a day-long workshop. In one workshop I conducted, we targeted an idea for improving the shipping experience with a large ecommerce website. We went to the local postal supply store, bought a box with the approximate dimensions we needed, and mocked it up to look like we had envisioned it. This was then used to get immediate feedback from potential customers.

Figure 1-15. Wireframes created during an alignment workshop quickly bring ideas to life.

Figure 1-16. Create a clickable prototype quickly for testing with potential users.

Test

Get feedback on your ideas as quickly as possible, even during the workshop. This will not be controlled, scientific research. Instead, the aim is to understand your assumptions better. Are you solving the right problems? Does your idea address the problem in the right way?

Once you’ve articulated and represented your ideas, there are many lightweight ways to evaluate it, including some of the following.

Hallway testing

Get feedback from people close by who are not part of the workshop. Colleagues in other departments can provide quick, initial reactions on your concepts, for instance.

Online tests

There are many online services that provide feedback on concepts and prototypes—for example, Usertesting.com. You’ll usually get results within a matter of hours.

Focus groups

Recruit people in advance of the workshop to give direct feedback. Present the concepts to a small focus group of two or three people and watch how they react.

Innovation often comes without epiphany. Don’t expect to be able to recognize an innovation as such immediately.

Concept tests

Moderated tests ask participants to think aloud as they interact with your prototype or artifact. As with focus groups, you have to recruit participants in advance. Figure 1-17 shows a concept test during a workshop. The tests were conducted in a separate room, viewable by the workshop team via video camera.

Figure 1-17. Test concepts during an alignment workshop for immediate feedback.

Hold discussions on the feedback you gather. Determine what you will change in the next iteration of the concept prototype. Or, you may decide to put the concept on hold. Either way, be sure that you integrate the learning from the evaluation rounds into your thinking.