Solving problems the right way.

To be fair, my approach isn't always the right and certainly not the only way to address problems, but I will show you how to use human-centered design to creatively solve complex problems.

Or to reframe this challenge as a design opportunity: How might we apply (and tailor) human-centered methods and tools to create positive change in a real-world scenario?

Making the world more
human-centered
.

Click on the numbers to find out what's behind each step of the design-inspired process I follow.

01

Empathize

Assessing and understanding the problem we’re trying to solve from a human, business, and technological perspective.

02

Define

Integrating our findings, leveraging insights from data, and reframing the core problems in human-centered ways.

03

Ideate

Co-creating ideas for solution concepts, innovative designs, or strategic interventions to solve the challenges we identified.

04

Prototype

Designing, building, integrating, or implementing the most promising solution(s) we created in the ideation phase.

05

Test

Collecting feedback on our prototyped solutions to test assumptions, gain new insights, refine our work, and decide what to do next.

Innovator's dilemma?
A case study

Imagine you’re Yana, the newly appointed manager for your organization’s upcoming software innovation project. You already assembled your diverse team and, being the modern day project manager you are, you decide to “go agile”.

Enter Andrew, your most influential business stakeholder whose support is critical for the project. And he is not enthusiastic about your plans. At all.

(This case study is from a session I led in 2021.)

Yana, 28

I’m passionate about co-creating value with innovative software products—ideally in a fast-paced environment.

Andrew, 32

Project management is all about time, scope, and cost. Projects cannot succeed without structured plans.

Can you design a solution?

Click the button below to empathize with Yana and Andrew, understand the core problems we're trying to solve, and ideate solutions to successfully start the innovation project.

Bonus: You'll also learn the basics (and some best practices) of agile and traditional project management along the way.

Solve the challenge

© 2023 Lisa Hehnke | CC BY-SA 4.0