The Bootcamp Bootleg (Stanford Design School)

Cover of the d.school Bootcamp Bootleg

Stanford Design School has developed a great tool for designers that is also of value to creative and innovative facilitators (and people facilitating creative and innovative processes).  The free PDF is full of tried and true methods to encourage people to identify and refine ideas.

Some methods from the Bootcamp Bootleg

Some of the methods are:

• Extreme Users - people whose needs and solutions are amplified by their situation.  Can the layout of a car's dashboard be improved by examining the dashboard in a jumbo jet or a nascar?
• Saturate and Group - plaster your immediate environment in cues about your project, using Sticky Notes or even miniature models; then group like-with-like.
• Bodystorming - move beyond discussing, sketching and imagining, and set up a situation and act out the situation in a range of ways.  (I am yet to get one of my groups to try out this technique - I find it intriguing.)
• Wizard of Oz Prototyping - I'm not giving this one away.  Go and find it and see for yourself what this is about, but first use your imagination:  What could this be?
• User Capture Grid - this is a method of collecting feedback along the way or at the end - a useful technique for every facilitator.

As well as providing detailed instructions for each method, the PDF provides some excellent general advice on how to facilitate sessions, including:  "show don't tell" and "embrace experimentation".

I encourage participants in a couple of workshops to explore these techniques for their own purposes.

You can download the current (2010) version here.

...Geoff
www.performancepeople.com.au