Design Operations Guide
Convergent Thinking 1
Project Mapping, Skills Assessment, and Budget Making
Convergent Thinking
The frameworks in this section will help you see the ideas you generated in the last section through the lens of your resources and project constaints. This can be a little bit of a tense session, as people might feel that their ideas are being run over or thrown out of the window.
The Lab’s Constructive Critique training module can help you and your teammates navigate these discussions with aplomb. If you’ve not been able to attend a Constructive Critique module, simply be aware of how ideas are discussed in the group so that everyone feels heard and that decisions are made based on a logical, rather than emotional, basis.
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Project Mapping
Use the Project map to help you define the constraints in your design project. These constraints include: the who, what, when, where, and why of your project. The “why” is divided into two parts: for the project principle, and for the participant problem. Understanding that these are not always the same is important, as their differences or similarities will determine with whom and how you test your idea.
This is an evolution of your first Project Plan, now that you have design ideas to consider alongside your practical constraints.
Fill out this framework for each design idea.
Team Framework
Use the Team framework to define the skills and resources you have or do not have in your project team.
Build a Budget
Use the Budget framework to figure out how many resources you have for your project, and if they will be sufficient for the task at hand.