By midmorning on Day 2 of our innovation sprint, the walls of our client's Innovation lab are starting to get colorful as each team translates notes from their interviews with stakeholders onto Post-Its.

Did you know the secret to innovation is defining your problem in a way you never have before? Read on to experience how we facilitate teams through this part of human-centered design at Experience Institute (with big inspiration from our friends at The Stanford d.school).

Team members place their interview notes on the walls, creating a rainbow of ideas and takeaways in a 3-step process:

↠What did the stakeholder say or do in our interview with them?
↠Based on that, what might the stakeholder value or need?
↠Looking at the collected values and needs, what insights can we glean?

Then comes the fun part: turning those insights into How Might We questions that teams will use as a catalyst for their brainstorming. The stronger the insight, the better the brainstorm. Take a look at these comparisons:

Question WITHOUT a strong insight → Same question, this time WITH strong insight

WITHOUT INSIGHT: "How might we transform the in-office experience for early career employees?" →
WITH INSIGHT: "How might we transform the in-office experience for early career employees when groups and cliques feel impenetrable?"

WITHOUT INSIGHT: "How might we broaden the scope of tasks performed by early career employees?" →
WITH INSIGHT: "How might we broaden the scope of tasks performed by early career employees if their managers don’t trust their client-facing abilities?"

It’s these insights, which came from stakeholder interviews, that allow teams to ask a novel question – one the firm has not already been asking for years.

Innovation starts with asking a novel question. If we ask the same old question, we’re likely to come up with a solution we’ve already tried and that didn’t work. When we ask a new question, we give ourselves a shot at coming up with a breakthrough solution.

Day 2 of the innovation sprint requires a lot of analysis, synthesis, comparison, and revision. So, we close the day with an exchange of appreciations.

Each person writes a specific piece of praise on a Post-It for each of their team members. Then we wander around the room exchanging Post-Its. One participant reflects: “Positive feedback from the team early in the week brought us closer and made us more willing to be vulnerable.”

My favorite part of the day comes right at the end when we stand in a circle and lay down the gauntlet of “the Name Challenge.” We cover up our name tags. Can anyone name all 35 people in the room?

Incredibly, one person can! Everyone is wildly impressed. And now it’s off for the night to relax with some cold beers and ax throwing! We’ve heard that some of the Wisconsin locals in this group can throw!

Keep following next week to experience the rest of the innovation sprint alongside me.