Crowd-sourcing Empathy
When incubating a new idea, or working on your own project, its easy to slide into your own thoughts, thinking that the thing you are creating is solving a problem or making something better- when actually it might only be solving your own problem.
Design thinking encourages empathising with the people impacted by your work. But how can you really understand and empathise when you are working on your project alone?
This was a challenge faced by my retreat guests. Each had a new business or was developing an existing piece of work. We’d worked together, through creative and development activities to align the work with their personal values and ambitions and now was time to discover some new perspectives and understand why their work really mattered to others.
Crowd-sourcing empathy is an activity I designed to challenge fixed mindsets. It involves standing up and physically moving across the room, between 2 words ‘challenge’ at one end and ‘solution’ at the other.
Each participant has a challenge/solution journey and has described this to the group.
We walk each others journeys and at different points each person is stopped and questioned.
How does this challenge feel? What else is happening around this challenge?
Is this solution valuable to you? Why?
What makes you stop walking? Or run?
If you wait here what do you feel?
What and who do you needesign thinking journeyd on your journey?
As answers are given, participants capture notes in a small notebook, sometimes answers given on one persons journey chime with another, often small details are discovered that we haven’t thought of, new ways of approaching the challenge or solution are gathered and assumptions affirmed or changed. The activity offers the opportunity to step back and receive feedback in a low risk and supportive way, ask questions and improve the journey between challenge and solution.
“somehow, physically walking between the 2 points, really tuned me into the journey, I could imagine and share what was going on and give feedback that felt authentic. When others commented on my challenge I could see there were ways to connect with clients that I’d not thought of before.”
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