bring out your inner design thinker: crafting your own tools for change

BEN CROTHERS | ATLASSIAN | @BENCROTHERS

BRING OUT YOUR INNER DESIGN THINKER

Crafting your own tools for change

Are these still around?IT’S 2025…

How can we craft tools for change with what’s already around us?

We’ve got problems…

We’ve been swindled

Craftsman

Tools through the ages: Up to 18th C. - Agrarian

Mechanisation & division of labour

Toolmaker Manufacturing

Tools through the ages: 19th C. - Industrial

Rise of computers & software

Software

Services

Toolmaker Manufacturing

Tools through the ages: 20th C. - Services

ProcessesKanban Rapid prototyping

Tools through the ages: 21st C. - Experience

Toolmaker ManufacturingServicesSoftware

Cloudification of software & services

Tools through the ages: 21st C. - Experience

Services

Cloudification of software & services

Toolmaker ManufacturingSoftware

?

Tools through the ages: 21st C. - Experience

Services

The thinking that got us to here,won’t get us to there

Get back that making feeling

Change = Engaging the head, heart and hands

Helps us engage the head, the heart and the hands

Design thinking

Deep and holistic user understanding Visualising, prototyping and refining Fostering a culture to bring out ideas from anyone in an organisation

Design thinking

The process

Prototype Test & learnIdeate

Prototyping formats

More ideas

Prototype Test & learnIdeate

Making is as valuable as what is made

Tools for changeUN-TAPPED

BrainstormingFIRST GEAR

Journey mappingSECOND GEAR

PrototypingTHIRD GEAR

The ‘blank tool’ problem

?

Brainstorming

Translating

OrganisingPrioritising

Deciding

Testing

Prototyping

Educating

1. Canvases 2. Scorecards 3. Posters 4. Playing cards

Example formats to help

Great for collecting all essential information for your idea, project, target audience, product or service Bake a process in Forcing function for clarity before moving ahead

1. Canvases

Example - Business Model CanvasAll key pieces of info in one place

Atlassian Experience Canvas

Hypothesis - what we set out to test

Minimum viable experience (MVE)

End-to-end demo

What problem we’re trying to solve

Making your own1. Nominate a goal

Build a product/service Find a business partner Educate the organisation

2. Gather types of infoTo make decisions To communicate to others To let others take action

4. Fill in with your teamUse the canvas to discuss and fill in answers

3. Make a canvasArrange all the key pieces of info into boxes

Great for team-based decision-making A set of measures to help rate the health of projects, teams and outcomes Use them to clarify, not to police Involve the team in choosing what’s scored

2. Scorecards

Atlassian Project Health Monitor1 full-time owner

Balanced team

Shared understanding

Value and metrics

End-to-end demo

Consistent communication

Dependencies

Velocity

8 areas that indicate project health, rated as: Green - on track and all good Yellow - needs attention Red - Fix this puppy!

Atlassian Project Health Monitor1 full-time owner

Balanced team

Shared understanding

Value and metrics

End-to-end demo

Consistent communication

Dependencies

Velocity

DATE 1 DATE 2 DATE 3

Making your own1. Discuss with the team

What makes a project healthy? What’s holding us back?

2. CondenseRefine your ‘health criteria’ to just enough

4. Fill in with your teamPick a real project, fill it out Iterate and refine

3. Have a simple scaleWhat’s your scoring scale? 1, 2, 3? Red, yellow, green?

Great for re-framing ideas and clarifying value A lot of fun to create as a team The process of making them is just as important as reading them

3. Posters

In-flight safety card

Fun format

Smart questions

Making your own1. Define the audience

Who are you wanting to communicate to? What is their context?

2. Define the valueWhy should your audience care? What’s the call to action?

4. Make it interactivePrototype, gauge interest How might you make people do something with it?

3. Design the posterMovie poster? In-flight safety card? In-store product?

Great for being a catalyst for richer conversations and game-play ‘Mobile version’ of larger tools Creating them from other assets forces you to simplify and clarify Easy and cheap to print - makeplayingcards.com

4. Playing cards

Customer benefit cards

For brainstorming: - what’s the most

important benefit for this feature?

- How might we improve this feature according to these benefits?

Design + Agile cards

Persona cards

Communicards

Role cards Questions about what this role does

Persona cards Questions about how this type of person behaves

Using persona cards to ideate and validate

Making your own1. Pick a function

Brainstorming? Prioritising? Reducing something else?

2. Explore formatsRegular playing cards? Just words on cards? Drawn pictures?

4. Play with themPrototype, gauge interest Are there different ways you could use them?

3. Design the cardsIs it a game, or thinking device? Do you score points?

Making is as valuable as what is made

IF YOU TAKE AWAY ONE THING…

BEN CROTHERS | ATLASSIAN | @BENCROTHERS

THANK YOU. GO FORTH.

Make change!