Start flipping workshops

The notion of “flipping classrooms” was pioneered by teachers who figured out they could leverage math videos by Sal Khan (now Khan Academy) to have their students watch lessons alone at home, so they could work on homework together at school (hence the “flip”).

At first blush this sounds backwards, but it’s a far better use of everyone's time and attention. Instead of students sitting all together in class, quietly listening to a teacher give a lecture, they watch a video of the lesson at home by themselves (which enables each student to absorb the material at their own pace, and rewatch parts if necessary). And then, instead of students trying to do homework by themselves after school, they are able to work on the homework together in class (which allows teachers to see where kids are getting stuck and provide extra help and attention).

I believe it’s time to do the same thing with design thinking. It’s time to start “flipping workshops”.

I’ve run hundreds of workshops over the last 10 years, and most of the time participants are new to design thinking. As such, it’s important to introduce the fundamentals of design thinking before having teams apply empathy & experimentation strategies together on projects. Perhaps not surprisingly, a good introduction to design thinking can take half a day (to learn about the DT process, to hear a few case studies, and to try a mini practice project).

Instead of dedicating a full morning (25% of a 2-day workshop) to introduce the fundamentals of design thinking, imagine if everyone could show up already having covered the basics on their own? So, when the workshop starts, the innovation work can start too.

Last year, I tested the idea of “flipping workshops” multiple times (with more than 100 participants all over the world). As pre-work, everyone got themselves through a series of Design Thinking Introduction videos on their own time (the week before). And this enabled us all to roll up our sleeves and get right work when the workshop started.

Like with flipping classrooms, I have found that flipping workshops is much better way to leverage everyone’s scarce time and collective attention. After all, we call them “workshops” not “learningshops”, right?

So, if you’re looking for an easy way to introduce design thinking to your team before getting some innovation work done, consider flipping a workshop to get the most out of your time together.