CSI:Lab - Lesson Plan & Facilitator Guide: Purpose & Preparation
CSI:Lab - Lesson Plan & Facilitator Guide: Purpose & Preparation
Purpose Unlock your creative potential and use Google’s road-tested innovation framework to understand user needs, think 10x and start
experimenting to power innovation. These materials are adapted from the CSI:Lab program developed by Google’s People
Development team.
Originally used by architects like Bryan Lawson, engineers like L. Bruce Archer, and even political scientists like Herbert Simon,
“design thinking” has come to be a process that can be applied to any complex problem. Stanford Professors Rolf Faste and David
Kelley, who later founded the design consultancy IDEO, were among the first to broadly teach and apply this design approach to
problem solving. This approach has been used to brainstorm solutions for societal issues like g etting kids to eat healthy school
lunches as well as to help well-established companies redefine their place in a fast-changing industry. Today, design thinking is
taught as a formal course at places like Stanford’s d.school, the HPI School of Design Thinking, and Harvard University.
The CSI:Lab (Creative Skills for Innovation) workshop gives people the mindset, process and tools to accelerate innovation and to
find out what it takes to get from ill-defined problems to well-designed solutions. Attendees work through a complex challenge to
come up with new approaches and potential solutions. After the session, participants will also have the resources to apply their
innovation skills to future projects and challenges.
Learn by designing: As you apply our innovation process to your challenge, this course will:
● Equip you with a “designer’s mindset” to cultivate essential design-thinking skills.
● Explore a step-by-step framework to innovation. Learn how to use your time effectively while being immersed in hands-on
activities.
● Give you the chance to practice being a user-centered, prototype-driven innovator!
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Preparation 4 Hours (time is flexible to your needs and customization — sessions may be extended to 1 or 2 full days).
Flexible group size. However, standard size is 5 to 30 (sessions bigger than 30 generally require more than one facilitator).
Room setup:
● A large (training) room (think studio), depending on size of tables.
● Ideally, flexible furniture to adapt room easily to team activities (e.g., interviewing, brainstorming, prototyping, presenting).
● Group the participants around tables (ideally in squares).
Facilitator prework: Use this doc as a framework to help you come up with the challenge statement for your design thinking
session: How to frame a design challenge.
For each group:
● 2 x Flipcharts or Whiteboard
● Prototyping Materials
● Markers
● Post-it notepads
● Pens and Pencils
Materials required:
Facilitator must have:
● Laptop (facilitator only, not students)
● Projector
● Presentation slides
● External speakers (for video volume)
● Timer: Google Search “Timer”
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8min Welcome
[Feel free to PLAY upbeat MUSIC while participants are entering the room.]
Manage participants’ expectations:
● If anybody is here to just “listen” and “watch” how innovation and creativity works, I have to disappoint you.
We are not going to t alk about innovation and creativity, we are going to do it!
● Innovating is best learned by doing, and our Lab immerses you in an experiential learning environment.
● CSI:Lab is here to make you an innovator, a designer, a creator, by walking you through a full
design-thinking circle and letting you experience the “live” innovation process.
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● Stand up and begin!
[Turn on upbeat MUSIC]
Debrief:
● Think about the last time you went to a meeting and shared an idea that wasn’t accepted. This happens to
everyone.
● There are several different ways you can respond to this:
○ You could mope and undermine the idea that was chosen.
○ Or, even if your idea wasn’t the one chosen, you can still be on the winning team and fully support
the winning idea. You all work for the same company after all.
● Today we’re going to be generating many ideas. Your idea might not be chosen, but it’s your job to fully
support the idea that is chosen.
● We’ll touch more on the rules of engagement later on (such as “Yes, And...”), but it’s important to start off
open-minded and positive.
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3min
The 3 Key Principles of our design thinking approach @ Google
Most importantly, at Google, there are three key principles to design thinking, which is how we view and define the
process at Google.
1. First principle is to “focus on the user”.
● One of the most important aspects of Google’s innovation process is the focus on people. And so this is
where we start: with people, with users.
2. Second principle is to “think 10x”.
● Just reflect for a moment on the huge difference between a 10% improvement and a 10x improvement.
This step challenges us to come up with ideas not just 10% better but 10x better than the status quo.
3. Third principle is to adopt the ‘launch and iterate’ philosophy of being “prototype-driven” .
● This is the phase where we test out the idea and get real data about whether or not it makes sense to move
it forward, kill it, or tweak it.
[Optional - some history around design thinking]
● This approach has been used to brainstorm solutions for societal issues like getting kids to eat healthy
school lunches as well as to help w ell-established companies redefine their place in a fast-changing
industry. Today, design thinking is taught as a formal course at places like Stanford’s d.school, the HPI
School of Design Thinking, and H arvard University.
● Our focus is on creating innovators rather than any particular innovation.
● It is not a static process, but an approach to creative problem-solving.
● Each team and individual develops their own process as they work on a problem, adapting and adding to it
as they go.
● The key element is being mindful of the process and how you work, not just what your outcome is.
● Regardless of the steps you take, the elements underlying the process are the mindsets of empathy, an
attitude of prototyping, collaboration, iteration and feedback.
● Since the founding of the d.school, the methods have really spread a lot! Examples to come later.
● In this session, we are n ot going to go over the theory behind these methods, but we will use them.
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The Challenge
[Introduce challenge(s) and explain why we keep it as a broad, high-level statement to begin.]
● This is your overarching, high-level challenge for today. It is important to learn the process from the
beginning and to not be too focused and biased towards a specific project.
● The challenge should create momentum — it should be revealing, aspirational, empowering, and change
people’s lives (e.g. Google’s mission - to organize the world’s information and make it universally
accessible and useful.
● Remember: our focus is on creating innovators rather than any particular innovation.
● The reason why we choose a challenge (that is not closely related to your work or a project you are doing),
is because we want to provide you a safe area, where you can experiment and learn the process and the
techniques of a Design Thinker, without worrying too much about previous work or project members.
● ow to frame a design challenge
Supporting doc: H
1min As Larry Page regularly mentions “focus on the users and all else will follow”.
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● This Venn diagram shows how technology, user and $$ fit together for success - focus first on the user and
this will lead to the right solution (instead of focusing first on $$)
● The A ndroid One phone is an example of this. Android focused first on the needs of Indian users (cheaper
smartphone).
● [Feel free to mention other examples]
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before.
○ In each pair, find a way for them to decide who is going to speak first (doesn’t matter who!)
○ 2min: Person A talks about a key challenge they are currently facing (could be at work, or personal).
Person B listens.
○ 1min: Person B reflects back to Person A what they heard.
○ 1min: Person A is able to offer feedback on Person B’s interpretation.
to: ○ Pairs switch, run the exercise again.
Total time: 5min to explain, 10min for exercise.
Debrief:
● Ask the audience how it went, what they felt. They will generally field the answers you need —e.g., they find
it hard to just sit and listen without coming up with solutions for the other person’s problems
● Make sure to touch on:
○ Empathy requires you checking assumptions and ideas at the door.
○ Feedback helps you hone in on speaker’s reality.
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■ If you ask 5 times, you’ll drill down to the core problem which might lead to a totally
different solution later
■ Doctor diagnosis example:
● I have a headache. (Why?)
● I ran into the door. (Why?)
● My wife slammed the door at me. (Why?)
● We have relationship issues. (Why?)
○ Asking “why?” this many times may feel a little uncomfortable, but that’s okay. It’s worth it.
Others:
● Don’t say ‘usually’: don’t let them get away with generalities. Ask “what’s...”
○ E.g., “What exactly did you eat yesterday?”
● 20/80 rule
○ The user should be talking 80% of the time. Ask your question, then listen!
Remember this quote:
"If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses." (Henry Ford)
2min Always a good idea to create sample questions on the challenge that you can share with your participants for
inspiration.
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There are three roles to assign among your teammates. Assign roles now.
5min Now take 5 minutes to write down potential questions to ask your user.
[advance to next slide so students can reference interview tips while working on questions]
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● Now you (hopefully) have a better understanding of “what the user is about?” and “what there needs are?”
● Data makes no sense unless you talk through it and synthesize it, which is the next stage.
● We’re going to move into the d
efinition stage
15min One other tool that we use to synthesize this data is through building “Inferences” - it helps us understand facts
(what actually happened) and inferences (what does this actually mean).
● Left side: Facts (objective) → what actually happened?
● Right side: Inferences (subjective) → what meaning do we collectively make about the user? (Inferences)
[Talk through each side]
● Your small group has an opportunity to draw an inference map.
● Stick your notes from the user interviews in the facts.
● Write new sticky notes to build inferences.
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● Get on your feet; crowd around the whiteboard; and complete the map as a team.
● This exercise helps us understand what the user is really about.
You will have 15 minutes to do so.
Example: Some teams decide to display them at the office and add new sticky notes when fresh insights come up.
Example: Pull up one sleeve on your shirt. Tell participants: It’s a fact that I have a short sleeve and a long sleeve.
Let’s make some inferences: Ask participants to build inferences why you have one sleeve shorter and one longer
(e.g. hide your watch, have a stain, too hot on one arm, etc.)
2min
POV - Good Example
● Let’s take a look at this example of a POV, in which we can easily understand who our user is, what he
needs, and why he feels that way:
● Jose is a busy manager who wants to eat healthier but doesn’t want to feel like he’s on a diet.
● The additional details we learn about our user from this statement will be helpful guides in our brainstorm,
allowing us to create a better solution uniquely for Jose.
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○ He wants to have a better experience at Google...but why? How? We need more information to
identify possible, viable solutions for him.
5mins ● You’ve now seen a few good examples of POVs, it’s time to create your own! Use this mad-lib style formula
and in your teams, drop in the information from your User, Needs, Insights chart to craft a statement. You’ll
have 5 mins.
1min
● For example, between the too narrow “How might we create a food tracking app to encourage healthy
eating?” and the too broad “How might we help people eat more healthy?”, somewhere in the middle might
be the proper scope.
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5min ● As a small group, come up with a few different HMWs, based on your POV statement. Remember that we
are s
till not in solution land! These HMW questions are just various ways for you to frame the challenge
that you’ve been addressing.
● You’ll have 5 minutes:
○ Everyone stand around a whiteboard.
○ Have a marker ready to write.
○ Remember to take the user perspective and use what you learned from the interviews to inform
your ideas.
● When you’ve generated a few HMW statements, pick one for your brainstorm.
Brainstorming
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terribly drawn house - do it again”. Imagine how crushed a small child would be if you told them they were
not good at drawing or being creative. Sadly, this does happen and we slowly convince ourselves we “can’t
draw” or “aren’t creative” when we reach adulthood.
● Be confidently, childlike. We were all children once - everyone has the ability to be creative!
● Try something new and do it!
1min Before we get started, let’s go over some helpful tips to get into a brainstorming mindset:
● The most appropriate response to someone’s idea is “yes, and”
○ Many companies have a “no, but” culture
○ That doesn’t help the brainstorm move forward - we want BIG ideas and this comes from “yes,
and”. Don’t shut down others’ ideas - you’ll be surprised by how seemingly crazy ideas can generate
solid outcomes.
1min ● Go for quantity, not quality (at least in this first pass)
○ The more ideas you generate, the better % chance you have of hitting gold.
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1min ● Headline it: D
on’t get into the weeds
○ Remember, you’re not going to have much time: 30 ideas in 10 minutes.
○ If you go into too much detail with any one idea, then you won’t be able to generate as many new
ideas.
○ So stay at the headline level.
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○ We want to create a safe environment.
○ Help everyone feel safe and valuable.
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● 5 mins
1min ● Now that we’ve generated a whole bunch of ideas, it’s time to determine which of them is worth pursuing
further. And to do this, we prototype.
● Many types of problem-solving involve thinking or calculating your way towards solutions. Prototyping is a
way of b uilding your way towards solutions.
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● So the moral of the story? When prototyping, just keep trying things! Don’t talk too much about one idea, or
keep trying to make one work if it’s not. Move on and try something else.
2min
In addition to outing assumptions, prototypes ask (and hopefully help answer) questions.
There are two basic genres of questions that prototypes ask:
● Do people want it? These are questions that help you validate if the idea you have is worth pursuing or not.
Prototyping here saves you LOTS of money and time - better to find out if people don’t want a product
before you invest time/money in building it.
● How should it work? Prototypes can also help you determine h ow a product/idea/service should function.
1min So how do you actually build a prototype? There are two ways:
● Fake it -- How can you quickly fake the functionality or appearance of an idea so you can more quickly
validate it?
● Make it -- How can you quickly, cheaply, or partially make a product to answer some fundamental questions
about the design or the needs it’s addressing?
30sec ● So let’s talk about these two forms of prototyping with an example. Suppose you had the idea of
manufacturing floating workspaces.
● You could either secure startup capital, invest heavily in the idea, manufacture some floating desks and
then see if there’s a market for them, or you could prototype the idea first.
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● To test this idea, you could simply put a desk on top of a tall building and see what happens.
● Importantly, with this prototype, you’re not even building a balloon. You’re testing a small, but important
aspect of your idea.
30sec
● How could you m ake the idea?
● Maybe another question you have is: “How much helium is required to lift a person?”
● You could quickly prototype your way towards an answer to this question with a visit to your local party
store.
● The point is, you could run both of these prototypes very quickly and cheaply. And doing so would give you
a WHOLE lot of info about whether or not your idea is a good one to pursue, and if so, how to make it work.
1min ● What are some e xamples of how prototyping has been used in the development of actual products?
● Jeff Hawkings, the co-founder of the Palm Pilot, was determined to create a portable computer that, unlike
the available options in the mid 90s, people would actually use. One of the first questions that Jeff wanted
to answer was how big to make it. Maybe, he thought, it should be small enough to fit in a shirt pocket.
● To test this idea, he cut a block of wood that would fit in his pocket, and walked around with it for months,
pretending it actually worked. What he learned in testing this prototype was that, yes, the size worked. By
validating his idea with a quick, fake it prototype, Hawkings was able to produce the blockbuster success of
the Palm Pilot.
1min ● In the late 1980s, McDonalds considered adding some Italian options to their fast-food menu. They had no
idea, though, if there was even any demand for them.
● Their solution? They faked it. Rather than spend months in a food lab designing the entree and rolling it out
across their stores (without even knowing if people would eat it…) they simply added the item to their menu
and watched to see if anyone would order it. (If someone did, they’d let the customer know that they were
fresh out.)
● What they’d find? No one wanted McSpaghetti. So they abandoned the idea.
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1min An example of M
aking it
● An electronics store wanted to figure out a way to sell more electronics. One idea was that people might be
more eager to buy new stuff if they got money for selling their old stuff back to the store. To test this idea,
Best Buy set up a pop-up shop in the parking lot of one of their stores. They would give you money for your
old electronics and then see if you’d spend that money in the store.
● The prototype validated the idea, and they built this out into a highly successful service that is now a core
part of Best Buy’s business model.
1min
Another example of Making it [T
ED Talk for reference]
● The Google Glass team wondered whether users would want to navigate the Glass software using hand
gestures. In 45 minutes, they built a functional prototype that offered users the very experience they wanted
to learn more about.
● Here’s how it worked. A user would stand in front of a whiteboard on which a slide deck was projected. The
user would wear hair bands around her wrists, which were attached to a set of cables. When she’d move
her hands to the side, it’d apply tension to the cable.
1min ● Behind the whiteboard was a simple mechanism comprised of 2 chopsticks, 2 pencils, some tape and a
presentation clicker. When a user would extend her arm, the tension would pull on the chopstick which
would in turn depress a button on the clicker. One hand would advance the deck a slide, one hand would
move it back.
● What did they learn? Through this simply prototype, the Glass team learned about the ergonomics and
social awkwardness of hand gesture navigation, and ultimately, decided against building out this
technology.
● These are not lessons they could have gotten quickly through focus-groups or research, prototyping got
them the answers they needed quickly.
6min ● Get in groups of 2-3 and come up with some ways of prototyping the following ideas and questions. You
have 5 min.
[At end of 6 min, have groups report out some prototyping idea for each topic]
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5min ● Now let’s return to the ideas you brainstormed. Before we prototype the one idea your group decided on,
think about the questions that you’re hoping that your prototype will answer.
● In your groups, come up with 4-5 questions for the idea you want to prototype. Star the most important 1-2
points you want to address in your prototype.
20 mins No Slide
Prototype - Action time!
[Show available materials for lo-fi prototyping.]
● Create the roughest and most rapid form to get your ideas across! You have 20 minutes. Please use all the
materials provided.
● Your prototype can take a range of forms (e.g., you can roleplay a service, use paper for screens of an app,
use pipe cleaners or paper bags to create a rough object).
3mins Test
● Now we are at the last stage of the design thinking framework: Testing.
● This is a very important phase in the process, where we can test our ideas with users and iterate on them
based on users’ feedback.
● There are usually lots of iteration cycles between prototyping and testing (Glass is an example of this).
30sec ● Find your original user and get some feedback on your prototype
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As your user engages with your prototype, track the following:
● What’s working well?
● What does your user wish were different?
● What new ideas does this spark for you?
● What new or lingering questions do you have?
Two rules:
● Remember the 20/80 rule: Let the user speak for 80% of the time and introduce the prototype 20% of the
time.
○ You’re not pitching ideas, just explain how it works then let the tester talk.
○ Capture notes from your tester.
● We prototype as if we’re right; we test as if we’re wrong.
○ Celebrate failure - learn and share, and go back to the process.
Always focus on human values: focus on the user. They can help you build something meaningful and useful.
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indful of process - know where you are in the process and where you’re going.
Be m
Show, don’t tell - much more powerful; don’t be afraid to use random materials to bring your ideas to life.
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Collaborate across boundaries
5 mins End
● To summarize, design thinking is user-centered, prototype driven innovation.”
● Everyone is creative and has the potential to become an innovator.
● “Action planning” - What will you take away from this session?
● Take 2 minutes and write down what you want to take away by responding to three prompts via sticky note:
○ I like . . .
○ I wish . . .
○ What if . . .
● One person at a time reads out stickies as they stick them on flip chart sheets
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