I presented intro to design thinking workshops for all ranks from the West Point Band. In a culture as formal and regimented as the U.S. Army, this type of divergent thinking is a wholly new approach. These workshops used a hands on approach to teach the basic principles of the design process in a single session. Participants were taken on a journey through problem exploration, user research, and prototyping, allowing them to experience user centered design first hand. Participants were initially skeptical of the approach until the end of the exercise, when participants shared their prototypes. After seeing the vast range of outcomes that emerged in a single session when focusing on the user, participants began to expand their thinking when searching for solutions in the future.
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