3 design thinking methods for your daily life

2 truths and a lie. Brother-in-law edition

This exercise is the star icebreaker in our kick-off sessions. When in a project, we encourage stakeholders to write down on a piece of paper 2 truths and 1 lie about the product or service we are about to design. It’s incredible how much information you can get out of a lie. Not only you get information about the object of the project, you also get relevant information about the personality of each stakeholder.

Having a lunch or dinner with family or friends? Surprise your guests. You will have a fun time and you will create interesting chats too.

Step 1. Wait for dessert. Give a marker and a piece of paper to each dinner guest. Maybe you will have to explain it twice to grandma. Be patient.

Step 2. Tell them to write down 2 truths and 1 lie about a topic. Here are some examples for you to use: “3 unexpected things that happened to you this year”, “3 things you want to do during this year” or “3 things about the oldest person in the room”.

Step 3. Once they have written down 2 truths and 1 lie about the chosen topic, put all the pieces of paper in a box. It’s important that no one says what they have written.

Step 4. Read out loud all the truths and lies (you have to read them in disorder). The challenge consists on guessing who is the author and which of the 3 facts is a lie.

Bellstorming to ideate unexpected gifts

Have you run out of time to buy a birthday present? Valentine’s Day and you still have no clue on how to surprise your partner with? Here’s how to solve these two problems in just 12 seconds!

Step 1. Pick a piece of paper and fold it into 12 sections or print our Bellstorming canvas.

Step 2. Think (hard) about the person that is going to receive the gift.

Step 3. Pick a pen and, with every bell ring, write in each bell the first word that comes to your mind about this person (p.e.: tap dance, massage, Africa, Darth Vader…).

This is the ideal brainstorming to generate quick ideas to iterate afterward. When new year’s bells stop ringing, you won’t have your mouth full of grapes, but you’ll have 11 useless gift ideas and 1 that will be the perfect gift idea.

Xmas gifts prioritization

The last exercise is done during the decision or convergence point and is useful for ideas or features prioritization. It’s been a long time since we replaced the iconic MoSCoW for the ICE system, based on Impact, Confidence and Ease. The creator of this system is Sean Ellis, who has a fantastic view of the Growth Hacking experiments.

We have prepared a tool to help Santa Claus prioritize the never-ending gift lists children send him every Christmas. This tool is inspired by our decision matrix, well, to be honest it’s as if an elf hacked our matrix.

Step 1. Open this matrix and fill in the first column (A) with the gift list.

Step 2. Answer the questions for each gift with yes or no.

Step 3. Once filled in, organize the list from highest to lowest. (To filter go to: Data/Filter Views/ Prioritize).

Bonus track: Happy Kanban 2020!

Choose the biggest painting on the wall, spin it and create your Kanban board on the back of it (this way you will be able to hide it when challenges don’t progress properly).

Step 1. Draw 4 columns with the following titles: TO DO / DOING / DONE / BACKLOG (or print our canvas).

Step 2. Write 5 challenges or experiences you would like to live in 2020 in 5 post-its.

Step 3. Place them at the finish line: TO DO (p.e.: Swim with sharks).

Step 4. Start working on it to move your post-it to DOING (p.e.: Save for a trip to Fiji islands).

Step 5. Meet the challenge: DONE (p.e.: I have a selfie with a Tiger Shark).

Step 6. Or simply decide that this is not the year to do it and move it to keep it for the next year: BACKLOG (p.e.: I still have to save a little bit more).

By the way, we strongly recommend you do it with your family or partner. Seeing how others progress with their own challenges or create new ones together will motivate you and boost the efficiency of your Kanban!