WORKSHOPS

Franziska Scheinhardt
Senior Strategic Designer at BCG Digital Ventures
LINKING DESIRABILITY WITH VIABILITY
Leveraging user and market insights to create business ideas that matter
The number one reason why startups fail is that they create a product that the market just doesn’t want. Nowadays we know that taking the customer’s perspective into account from day one, is essential to create successful business ideas. However, user insights are not the only source of inspiration to generate new opportunities. This workshop will provide you with methods and tools that enable you to craft new ideas that are desirable AND viable by leveraging not only user but also in-depth market insights.

Prof. Alejandro Lecuna
Professor for Innovation and Design at HTW Berlin
IDEA ARC RELOADED
How to engage with fuzzy ideas at the fuzzy front end of innovation
This workshop will deal with the importance of taking a deep and creative breath at the end of the Ideation phase. You will learn to craft testable Design Hypothesis, in order to improve the quality of your prototypes, tests and overall design thinking process. We will work with the The Idea Arc canvas, a new design thinking management tool for bridging the gap between Ideation and Prototyping.

Stefanie Gerken
Manager of Advanced Track at HPI School of Design Thinking
DESIGN THINKING IMPLEMENTATION
Challenges in small and mid-sized companies
Introducing Design Thinking into an organization can cause different challenges. These challenges might be very individually as Design Thinking is not only human centered when it comes to improve or create new products or services for a customer. It is also human centered when working with the methods and eventually the mindset within the company. In this session, Stefanie Gerken, Design Thinking Program Lead at the HPI School of Design Thinking, will tell you more about her experience when embedding Design Thinking into a mid-sized software company over 3 years, followed by a short exercise and exchange session.

Marianne Guillen
Head of Design Fundamentals at Zalando
INSPIRING AND ENGAGING TEAMS
To excel in a world of MVP's, ongoing uncertainties and constant pivots
When you asked designers or innovators why they joined their profession, you will likely hear: „I want to have an impact. I want to create great products. I want to design beautiful things.“ On the other hand, The Gallup organization reminds us every couple of years that nearly 68 percent of employees are not engaged in their job. Guillen will explore this contradiction and the opportunities in enterprise innovation teams.

Scott Weiss
VP Product Design at Babble
THE ECOLOGY OF UX
How Babbel learns from its users
Babbel was the first language learning app of its kind. Ten years later it has over 1 million active paying subscribers, making it the world’s top grossing language platform. In his talk, Scott will illustrate the company’s strategy that enables it to effectively learn from users. Amongst other aspects, he will talk about how ecological thinking enables the anticipation of UX erosion, and how it can mobilize elements of UX pro-actively. Scott is a UX visionary who has led teams in the US, UK and Germany for more than 20 years. Currently he is VP Product Design at Babbel.

Friederike Korte
Future Scientist & Innovation Consultant at futur/io institute
UMAMI FUTURES FOR LEADERS
“Umami Futures“ addresses the need to think about what futures we as humans find desirable to live, love and work in. Way too often our idea of the future is detached from what we need and want as human beings: We imagine a world full of robots, holograms, and cyborgs which is strangely aseptic and strictly functional. What’s more we feel like that these developments are a given and that we have to adapt without questioning them. Undoubtedly automation, machine learning and blockchain technology have and will have huge effects on our economy, society and everyone of us personally but it is in our responsibility as leaders to shape and use it in ways we feel safe, intrigued, inspired and which makes life rich like umami flavor for as many people as possible. As leaders in an accelerated changing world we need to find answers to what kind of futures we find desirable and encourage others to shape technology progress in a human way.
Learn how to combine decent knowledge of trends and future dynamics with your own set of values and make you a future activist instead of only reacting to an accelerated changing world.

Lana Criggs
Senior Product Designer at Zalando Studio
DISCOVER BUSINESS IDEAS THROUGH SACRIFICIAL CONCEPTS
Get more bang for your buck during product discovery! Facilitating product discovery sessions within a team can be hard, especially when people cling to their assumptions. Learn to craft sacrificial concepts collaboratively and use them as a discussion basis for in-depth user interviews. By generating reactions from your users that don’t leave room for misinterpretation, you can kill assumptions faster and start learning sooner.

Bar Schwartz
Head of Engineering Excellence at Signavio
CREATE AN ORGANISATIONAL STRUCTURE TO MEET THE COMPANY VISION
Organizational structure influences how people work, develop in their role, and communicate with others across the whole organization. Nevertheless, many organizations lack the awareness of how their structure simplifies or complicates their ability to reach their objectives. In the workshop, you will learn how to analyze and design an organizational structure with the end in mind. What the core elements of common organizational structures are and how to identify those core elements in a vision.

Lukas Stadelmann
Co-Founder of RETHINK Innovation

Stephan Matzdorf
Co-Founder of RETHINK Innovation
VISUALIZE TACIT KNOWLEDGE WITH
LEGO SERIOUS PLAY
Build your ideal ToolFest
In product and service design, Lego is often used and equated for prototyping. However, Lego Serious Play goes far beyond. The method was developed to work on complex questions and strategies. The construction of models helps to bring implicit knowledge to the surface and to visualize thoughts and ideas within a team. Our workshop will introduce Lego Serious Play and how the method can be integrated into your Design Thinking toolkit. Where does it come from? What are the basics and for which challenges can it be used? And, to give something back to the organizers, we are going to “Build your ideal ToolFest”.

Rodrigo Luna Orozco
Trend & Technology Scout at Volkswagen AG

Judith Kühne
Head of Smart Quality Lab Volkswagen AG
INNOVATION LABS
Zombies or Digital Pioneers?
New technologies, customer requirements and platform-oriented players are rapidly changing the automotive industry. In such an environment, it is no longer sufficient to incrementally improve current technologies and processes. Instead the following question has to be raised: How can an organization disrupt its own profitable business in order to stay alive in the future? Inform yourself on the role and success factors of innovation labs in an ambidextrous innovation strategy.

Caroline Merz
Program Manager at HPI Academy

Selina Mayer
Program Manager at HPI Academy
THE FRAME GAME
How to really deep dive into the synthesis of creative data
This workshop will demonstrate how prolific a playful approach towards synthesis can be. We will analyze a set of user data by playing around and trying out different frameworks and thereby shining light on different aspects and insights of the entire pool of user data. This game with frames is an unusual diverging detour, within the synthesis phase of converging, that will allow us together to experience a new and playful understanding of user data. Game on!

Beatrice Rachello
UI & Service Designer at Futurice

Ivan Ayala
UI/UX Designer at Futurice
INTELLIGENCE AUGMENTATION DESIGN TOOLKIT BY FUTURICE
Futurice IA Design Toolkit is designed to demystify machine learning and help non-tech experts to create smart service concepts. In this workshop you will learn how to think about machine learning as a sort of toolbox that offers new ways to address human needs by co-creating an IA-driven service in a playful way that fosters communication across silos.

Beverly Jiang
Educational Designer at Red Onion

Gosia Moszyk
Co-Founder of EduHeroes Club
AN EXPERIMENT IN EMPATHY & CONNECTION
We often find ourselves going to conferences, meetings, and meetups, only to leave with a load of shallow conversations and maybe a few new Facebook connections. But how do we really get to know someone and move from surface level acquaintance to a deeper understanding of one another? Through this experiential session, you will dive into a practice of empathy in order to connect. You’ll get a chance to peer into the inner workings of another human and create a deeper connection with one of them. This experience is for anyone who is willing to have an open mind and heart in sharing vulnerably and listening intently.

Stefan Latt
Strategic Designer & Sprint Facilitator
EXPANDING THE
DESIGN SPRINT TOOLBOX
Popularized by Google the Design Sprint has become the tool of choice for a lot of companies & product teams when trying to solve difficult business questions through customer-centric design. Part of that success can be credited to the exactly specified schedule and methods to be used – even untrained people can easily apply and replicate the process.
This workshop aims especially at people who have already taken part in a Design Sprint or are experienced in running workshops. Based on my experience of planning and facilitating more than 30 Design Sprints over the last two years I’m going to present my thoughts on how to build upon the ’standard‘ Design Sprint process. Together we will talk about when (not) to sprint and explore ways to expand and adapt Design Sprints to specific challenges and organizational needs.

Katharina Birg
Game Designer & Design Thinking Coach
GAME DESIGN
Modelling reality to make it tangible
Black Mirror is coming true in China, where your ‚rating‘ affects your home, transport and relationships. In the workshop „Game Design: Modelling reality to make it tangible“ we will focus on the topic „Social Scoring“ in greater detail. It is a hands-on experience where you will learn the basic elements of game design, create a narrative structure and develop a game prototype in small groups. Besides getting to know the play-centric process of design and iteration, we will also discuss how you could apply games in your daily work.

Audrey Liehn
Service Designer at SI Labs GmbH

Hannah Weiser
Service Designer at SI Labs GmbH
BUSINESS DESIGN CARDS
A card game to innovate your business model
Business Design can be tricky and people sometimes think it’s all about „numbers“. With the Business Design Cards we will convince of the contrary! This workshop will allow you to playfully engage with Business Design while iterating on your existing business model or come up with a complete new one. The Business Design Cards are a great tool to evoke inspiration around different aspects necessary for a successful and innovative business idea.

Frederik Görtelmeyer
Co-Founder of Rohpost & Design Thinking Coach
CRITICAL DESIGN
Exploring beyond the given
Design has to be user-centered. This claim has become a foundation of the design and innovation profession. Having studied and worked for a decade in the field of psychology and user-centered design, it has also become part of my professional DNA. But does radical innovation and visionary design always have to be based on what the human wants and needs? We will take a brief look into philosophy and explore why it may be necessary to find additional sources of innovation. Critical Design is an approach that questions the given of habits, norms and society. However, it tends to be rather a mindset than a method. In this workshops, we will use a newly developed canvas that helps to make Critical Design more tangible and easy to apply. The outcome of the work process is going to be a conceptual design, which is not made for the market. Instead, it is a vehicle to help ourselves and others leave their mental boxes and kick-start real innovation.

Blake Farha
Improv Workshop Leader at Henri & Blake

Henri Parmentier
Improv Workshop Leader at Henri & Blake
IMPROVIZE TILL YOU MAKE IT
Hacking your project with improv principles
Life and work are essentially living improv scenes. Things are constantly happening all around us which are completely out of our control, and our job is to react appropriately in the best, most effective way possible. Whether you’re an entrepreneur, part of a team or on the brink of starting your own project, learning the principles of improv will improve the way you collaborate, react to unforeseen circumstances, and commit with confidence to the decisions you make, as well as the decisions made by those around you. Come join us for an energetic and engaging 2-hour workshop where we’ll use Improv Principles to explore new ways of boosting creativity, expressing yourself in a team, and collaborating with others to make your ideas a reality.

Nadim Choucair
Manager of Ecosystem Partnerships at Etventure
SUSTAINABILITY BY DESIGN
Using the UN 2030 agenda and its sustainable development goals as a framework to design sustainable products & services
The workshop invites participants to examine the SDGs as a system in order to determine a way forward for their organisations to develop sustainable products and services. In this 90 minutes version, we will look at risks & opportunities associated with the SDGs, and understand how to align purpose & resources to drive change. Using an interactive method, participants will examine – Which SDG is most relevant to their organization – Which SDG does the organization have the most impact on? – Which SDG is the organization most impacted by? – Which SDG do they feel most personally committed to? This will help everyone get to common grounds about their understanding of the SDG and lays the grounds for an ideation exercise around challenges faced by the organization to achieve them in what can be an add-on workshop.

Galina Emelina
Co-Founder of Yoga Thinking

Lisa Günther
Co-Founder of Yoga Thinking
YOGA THINKING
How to use meditative dream journeys for ideation and synthesis
In this workshop the participants experience and practice to guide meditative dream journeys during the phases of Synthesis and Ideation in Design Thinking. Synthesis is a cognitively and analytically heavy phase. Guiding participants in this phase through a dream journey helps them cope with information overload, eases empathizing with the user/persona and supports an intuitive POV-building. Ideation in workshop settings is a phase often marked by fast and loud group interactions. A dream journey during Ideation gives each individual the space to connect to him/herself, let ideas and future scenarios emerge from the unconscious, which easily connects the dots between own experience, knowledge, new information and desired outcome.

Holger Eggert
Strategic & UX Designer, Google Head-Mentor
CORPORATE INNOVATION FOR INNOVATIVE CORPORATIONS
There is a reason why big corporations are starting to build their own innovation labs these days, and this reason is the Fear Of Missing Out (#FOMO). Missing out on talent, missing out on what successful startups do, missing out on innovation in general, often described rather vaguely. These initiatives almost always follow the same pattern. Unfortunately, they are therefore rarely successful. And in the interest of working like a startup, they forget why they are a big company in the first place. In this talk Holger Eggert will explain (and sing!) the flaws and pitfalls of corporate innovation labs. Having worked on several of these initiatives, he knows first-hand what works and what doesn’t. And there is indeed a simple way out of this mess, it involves strategic design and furniture, among other things, and it is the logical answer to why Design Thinking failed. In essence, this will be fun!

Miriam Soltwedel
Co-Founder of openmjnd & space3000
UNF*CK THE WHITEBOARD
Diary of an Agile Furniture Project

Prof. Carl Frech
Partner at Fuenfwerken Design AG / 5WX new ventures GmbH
HOW TO NAVIGATE IN A HYPERCOMPLEX FUTURE
All beginning is easy. Is that acceptable? What does creative sharing mean when you are building a new business? What will change if the economy follows systemic rules first and foremost? How can we recognize prospective relevant developments in a market? Why should we still understand the world in retrospect? Why should I always be interested in the person I want to reach? Why should we consider an idea as never finished? How important is radical thinking? Are we still able to think radical? What can we learn from children if we want to build something new?

Tassilo Boßmann
Product Manager at UTUM Digital Product School

Friederike Möller
Innovation Consultant & Facilitator Agile Methods
DESIGN DASH
Teaching Design Thinking in 90 Minutes
Making organizations and projects more agile and creative requires everyone involved to become familiar with the underlying processes and mindset. This often takes a lot of time and experience. The Design Dash is a quick and fun exercise to set the stage for introducing everyone in your team or work environment to the method of Design Thinking as a starting point. Created by Molly Wilson, Design Consultant and former program lead at the D-School, the Design Dash is meant to enable you to easily teach others to become more innovative and provide a more creative setting.

Jule Schröder
Founder of Kitchen on the Run & Innovation Coach
CREATING TOGETHERNESS
Making people meet each other by design
Jule Schröder is a serial (social) entrepreneur and experienced design thinker. The connecting element of many of her entrepreneurial activities is the design of getting to know each other. At Kitchen on the Run, people with and without a migration background meet at the kitchen table. „monaco 1:1“ is a cozy local single party event, the community raft project “Liebelei” unites Berlin water lovers and the mobile „Tentakel Bar“ creates a bonding meeting experience at the counter for music festivals. In her workshop, the participants experience firsthand which core elements facilitate getting to know new people and how to create a community feeling. Useful for everybody who works with groups and/or wants to meet new people in private or professional life. Jule Schröder currently works as a freelance innovation strategist and design thinking coach in Munich.
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