Below are common mindsets and practices to use throughout the NCD cycle:
- [ ] Document your assumptions: before you begin, and perhaps throughout the cycle, keep a running list of you and your teams' assumptions and possible bias on the subject(s) at hand. Use your research to test if you're right, grow your understanding, and evolve your thinking.
- [ ] Listen to understand: ask questions to clarify, not to challenge.
- [ ] Diversity is key: interview a 5-year-old, learn from an animal, go wildly outside of your comfort zone. Diversity on teams is important, but it's only the beginning.
- [ ] Be patient: moving to solution too early gets in the way of finding the best option.
- [ ] Bias towards action: moving too slowly gets in the way of progress. Make sure you have a timeline allotted for each step and move forward accordingly.
- [ ] Expansive brainstorming: use the statements "yes, and" instead of "no, but".
- [ ] Show your ideas early and often: don't be afraid to bring people into the process before you are "done". This allows us to not get too attached to solutions that don't actually work.
- [ ] Learn from failure: expect to make many, many pivots and adjustments.
- [ ] This is a cycle: you will return to earlier steps and repeat interviews, ideations, and prototypes many times. If you attempt to practice only in a linear way, you will be shortchanged. Embrace the cycle and be reassured as you revisit each step that you're flowing in the right direction.
How might we? (HMW)
As designers, we begin with a question. We use our words intentionally to ground us in what's most important and offer expansive energy to what is to come.
We don't ask "how can I?", which would tell us how one person may have solved this problem before. Instead, we ask "how might we?". These seemingly slight but powerful choices provide a space to imagine a future that does not yet exist while recognizing that we will need others to reach our vision.