Design Thinking
I have years of experience applying Design Thinking to daily product deliverables and team workshops.
As a design lead, I encourage our team to utilise a range of Design Thinking exercises for every project. We tackle big challenges by moving through the phases of understanding and observing our users, reflecting on their pain-points, pulling out insights, and exploring potential solutions by making prototypes that we can user-test for feedback.
This repeatable and iterative flow holds us accountable to always challenge our assumptions, make sure our designs align with our users needs, and push ourselves toward better solutions. For more information please explore the IBM Enterprise Design Thinking toolkit.
Personas and Empathy Maps during accessibility training
Leading Workshops with Product Teams, Customers, & Business Partners
‘Lets Connect’ Global Workshops for Customers
2019.04/05 Frankfurt, Zurich, Paris, London, Brussels, Vienna
IBM Collaboration Solutions are currently hosting a series of global Enterprise Design Thinking workshops to ‘Envision the future of Connections’ face-to-face with customers and business partners. I have been leading these workshops across Europe, joined by our Offering Management Director and Senior Managers to help facilitate the sessions.
Collaboration with Remote Product Team
2017… 2018 IBM Studios Dublin
As Design Lead for our product team, I helped to facilitate on-line design thinking sessions that our senior and junior researchers ran with our clients. The Mural application emulates paper post-it notes on an interactive wall and allows teams that are not co-located to type ideas and contribute feedback in a real-time discussion.
Contextual Inquiry & Workshop for Sponsor User
2017.12 Customer on-site in Germany
I co-led and facilitated a workshop on-site at one of our clients offices. We conducted user interviews and hosted a workshop for their team to work together and brainstorm ways they could solve issues they were having with collaboration.
Workshop with Multi-disciplinary Product Team
2017 IBM Studios Dublin
I led a 2 day in-person workshop for our designers, developers, and offering managers to get together and explore initial concepts for a new collaboration product. Our extended team in the US ran their own on-site workshop and we came together on a remote video call to playback the outcomes of our respective workshops.
Brainstorming Exercises with Product Team
2017.01.16 IBM Studios Dublin
I led a two hour session with my local design team to get the ball rolling on a new project and capture initial early ideas and responses to the problem statement.
Workshop for Clients
2016.03.09 off-site
I was one of a team of facilitators who supported the lead of this workshop. As it was a large group, we rotated between the sub-groups to help each team write as many ideas as possible.
Coaching Colleagues, Junior Designers, & Interns
Bootcamp for Early Career Professionals
2016 Jul…Sep IBM Studios Austin TX
I was a Section Lead for 2 months in Austin, Texas. My role was to help a team of 14 new designers learn about Design Thinking and how to apply it to the practice of designing enterprise software.
Intro to Design Thinking for IBM Interns
2016.06.26 IBM Studios Dublin
I led a session for IBM ‘Extreme Blue’ interns to teach them about the Design Thinking process and a selection of workshop exercises.
Bootcamp for Industry Hires
2016.04.18 IBM Studios Dublin
I helped to facilitate exercises at this bootcamp which was lead by a senior design thinking coach who traveled to Dublin to give this on-site training.
Teaching Students
Primary School Students
2019.07.12 IBM Studios Dublin
It was a real pleasure to meet a group of energetic students and see just how tech savvy they are! In this workshop my colleague and I used a kid-friendly approach to teach Design Thinking concepts in a way young children could get their heads around. These bright minds came up with some really cool apps to help solve issues they face at school, and most importantly they had fun while learning.
Transition Year Students
2019.03.05 IBM Studios Dublin
Together with a colleague I lead a workshop to introduce Transition Year students to the concept of Design Thinking. We taught them to think outside the box using the ‘vase’ exercise, and how to consider different peoples needs using empathy maps. They learned about collaboration, and how to work individually to come up with diverse ideas and storyboard them.
College Students
2019.02.25 Coláiste Dhúlaigh, Dublin
I had the opportunity to teach a group of college students about how they could use the Design Thinking framework to understand people, identify their problems, and think of creative ways to solve those. My colleagues and I ran an afternoon workshop at Coláiste Dhúlaigh and received great feedback that students were excited to put their new skills into practice with upcoming college projects!