Design Thinking + Improv: Sexy Bedfellows

I'm an improviser not a designer. Luckily there a ton of amazing resources on the interweb to wrap my head around design thinking like Stanford's D.School (where the above image is from), and Design Gym based in NYC. The more I read, the more I realized that the design world and the improv world have much in common.

EMPATHIZE 

Design Thinking (DT) - Find out who your audience is and what they care about

Improv - Find out who your character is and what they care about

DEFINE

DT - Establish a point of view based on your audience needs/wants

Improv - Establish a point of view based on your characters needs/wants

IDEATE

DT - Come up with a ton of creative, wild, crazy solutions 

Improv - Come up with a ton of creative, wild, crazy scenes or characters  

PROTOTYPE

DT - Take one of the crazy ideas, develop it, and show it to others

Improv - Take one of the crazy ideas, develop it, see where the story goes (while performing in front of others)

TEST

DT - Share your prototyped idea with your original audience. What worked? What didn't?

Improv - What worked? What didn't? Who laughed at what, when? Overanalyze this in the "green room" (usually a closet) with your team with full knowledge that you'll never perform that same show again 'cause it's improv.

Tim Brown, CEO of IDEO (THE global design firm) believes that play leads us to better creative solutions. Improv is play...so why not use it to spark your design thinking? 

Last week that's exactly what we did in my workshop at Design Gym. Learn more and read my post on their blog: The Secret of Creativity here.