Building events with design thinking

Design thinking has proven beneficial for generating insights and creative solutions, but certain conditions must be met and pitfalls avoided. Using design thinking as a foundation for great events is no exception.

Success depends on team alignment, investment in resources, adherence to the process, collaboration with the right individuals, and skilled facilitation. The process is often non-linear, and prototypes serve as starting points. However, the end result becomes a blueprint to align your team around one vision, a strategy and concrete actions for your event.

Originating from the work of Herbert Simon and Robert McKim and popularised by IDEO, this approach places stakeholders at the centre, so event outcomes can be even better.

Here are five essential steps for applying design thinking effectively to develop your next GREAT event.

Empathise

Events must primarily serve attendee needs and meet the goals of event sponsors. The impact of an event ripples out across the organisation, to partners and customers. So it makes sense to identify shared interests and gaps that need bridging. Equally important is deciding who to invite (and not) and to understand what they need to know, feel and do to contribute to the desired outcomes. 

Empathy therefore requires qualitative (and sometimes quantitative) research in the form of interviews, questionnaires and surveys. It also means bringing those people into the design thinking discussion instead of speaking for them. 

Only then can we carry on to the next step in design thinking.

Pitfalls: Group think, consensus and misunderstanding or misinterpretation of data due to assumption bias.

Define

In step two we pinpoint which challenges and opportunities can feasibly be addressed during an event and in follow-up actions and initiatives. 

This can be done using affinity mapping, persona development, stakeholder or journey mapping and using methods such as affinity mapping.

The goal is to identify well-informed, user-centered problem statements that will pave the way for the ideation process that follows. These require full sign off by all decision-makers. Otherwise it is easy to go off track.

At any point in the design thinking process we can loop back to this step to sense check and finetune our ideas.

Pitfalls: Insufficient data, lack of prioritisation, failure to consider  financial and practical feasibility

Ideate

Now we can encourage a broad range of ideas. The team is encouraged to experiment with out-of-the-box thinking, to build on the work of others and to embrace diversity.

Ideation is more of an iterative process rather than a one-and-done activity. Ideas must be prioritised and narrowed down according to how each idea addresses the pains and gains of our stakeholders. We also keep an eye on practical constraints to ensure proposed solutions are implementable.  

Ultimately, the outcome of the ideate step provides valuable insights for the content leads and the event design team. It is the start, not the end of event design. 

Pitfalls: Dominant voices, evaluation paralysis, idea overwhelm, groupthink, lack of time for assessment

Prototype testing

This step is crucial for testing concepts and getting feedback. It allows the team to refine and enhance their ideas and reduces risks of failure. Providing context to the people offering feedback is so important here. If they think they are assessing a finished idea and not a prototype they may focus on appearance over function.

It offers insights from beyond the confines of the design workshop. This accelerates creativity, confidence, focus and sparks unexpected innovations or solutions.

It pays to define your prototype audience before the design thinking process begins and to schedule time with them early.

Pitfalls: Over-engineering prototypes, focus on appearance over function, resource intensive

Implement

In the final step we can now implement by refining and implementing the best ideas generated in the earlier stages and incorporating the feedback we received. This includes event theming, agenda flow, diving deeper into the content, narratives, venue design, engagement methods and logistics. 

While implementing, it’s essential to build on the team’s existing competencies. This ensures innovations are grounded in a solid understanding of what works. 

With a shared design blueprint and a strong feedback loop built into the event design process, we can balance innovation with expertise - taking great ideas and turning them into reality.

Pitfalls: Risk of over-complication, neglecting core competencies, cutting corners and sacrificing quality