Organizing innovation sprints using Design Thinking with Klaxoon

Furious Intent is one of the pioneers of Design Thinking in France. The team defines this method as a holistic design process for shaping the future by developing innovative products and services that are desirable, viable, and feasible. Sophie Malherbe is the Co-founder of Furious Intent, and Julien Vachelard is the Innovation Manager.

Watch a video on how Furious Intent’s team facilitates online Design Thinking workshops remotely using Klaxoon.

Preparing an online Design Thinking workshop with Klaxoon

Innovation manager, Julien Vachelard, helps companies shape their future by supporting them with the creation of products, services, HR processes, and tenders. For that, he organizes innovation sprints with his clients, which are divided into four main parts: the ambition, the exploration, the value proposition, and the search for a solution.

Every sprint has a different finish line, but the path is always similar: a first period of individual ideation, followed by phase of group work, to share and discuss ideas, and finally, collective decision-making. In order to adapt this process to remote work, the Furious Intent team uses their collaborative tool: Klaxoon!

Furious Intent’s team applies the Design Thinking approach as early as its online design workshops. Every session is designed in advance, on a Klaxoon Brainstorm, in order to get an idea of the duration of each stage done with customers, and therefore to prepare efficiently and come up with relevant solutions.

Furious Intent’s team applies the Design Thinking approach as early as its online design workshops. Every session is designed in advance, on a Klaxoon Brainstorm, in order to get an idea of the duration of each stage done with customers, and therefore to prepare efficiently and come up with relevant solutions.

In practical terms, Julien creates a Klaxoon Brainstorm and organizes it himself very easily. This Brainstorm allows him to draw frames and text boxes linked to the participants, where they can come and add their ideas on the theme. Using an «Idea», they can post text, links to documents, images, and videos.

How to launch an online brainstorming workshop with Klaxoon

Furious Intent’s online innovation workshops involve around ten participants, who connect to Klaxoon through a smartphone, tablet, or computer. It’s very easy for them log on and join the activity created by the facilitator.

First of all, the participants are asked to individually post ideas on the issue at question. At this stage, the participants are not distracted or influenced by other people’s ideas, because, thanks to the «animator control mode», they can’t see them! Julien chose this mode when he was preparing his workshop to enable participants to think individually and post their ideas before they are all shared

To keep the session moving, Julien uses the Timer function. With the click of a mouse, he can define how long he wants to give the participants to think and post their ideas. These online brainstorming sessions using Klaxoon last 1½ hours compared to 4 hours in person. They are shorter but generate a wealth of ideas.

While all the participants are posting their ideas on the Brainstorm, the facilitator can progressively rearrange the team’s ideas as they are posted, consolidate what is redundant, and organize the Brainstorm as they see fit. When they are ready, the facilitator chooses the board view so that everyone can see and discuss each other’s ideas.

At this stage, the participants can move around the board, send and amend their own ideas, but not move or modify other elements (ideas, images, shapes, text). That is the method chosen by Furious Intent’s team to lock down everything and ensure the facilitator has control over the board.

Going from ideas to an action plan

After individual ideation and sharing the ideas as a group, the aim is to put in place an action plan based on the ideas that best meet the three Design Thinking criteria: desirability, viability, and feasibility.

For this stage, Julien uses the Like function: with the click of a mouse, participants can vote for their favorite ideas. The facilitator sees the Likes appear in real time. They can then move the most popular ideas to a zone reserved for that purpose. These new ideas are highlighted visually: this way, the participants can decide together what needs to be done to prepare the next session and move forward efficiently.

With Klaxoon, Furious Intent’s team can work just as effectively remotely as in person, thereby enabling them to pursue projects that are strategic to their customers, complete projects that must be finalized urgently, and start new projects…

Klaxoon to help stimulate everyday discussion

The agency has even adopted Klaxoon as an everyday collaborative tool, which they use both in customer workshops and internally. On the client side, the use of Klaxoon has been unanimously well received. The feedback has been positive and people who are not so familiar with digital tools also find the platform easy to use. Sophie now even finds herself launching spontaneous Brainstorms. When she feels it would be useful for encouraging discussion in meetings, she opens a Brainstorm, and everyone can express themselves freely.

Why don’t you try adopting a Design Thinking template to efficiently facilitate your innovation workshops?