Here’s a rapid Design Thinking practice exercise that I do in my training sessions. It’s really simple. You pair up in buddies and by gifting each other an origami craft, you can go through the full empathize, define, ideate, prototype and test stages in just 30 minutes.
Origami Gift Exercise
- Form pairs
- Take turns interviewing each other; learn who your neighbor is, what they like, aspire etc. (Empathize)
- Your gift to your neighbor will be something that represents them. What makes her/him/them special? Think of values, characters and other unique things about them. (Define)
- Ideate what kind of paper craft you can build to represent that something about your neighbor. (Ideate)
- Build your paper craft (Prototype)
- Exchange the gifts and tell what you built, and the story behind it. (Test)
It’s a great introductory exercise to experience Design Thinking, so find someone nearby and give it a try. It’ll be fun and pleasant for both you and your experiment partner.
