What is Design Swarms?
The Design Swarms framework was first developed in 2014, and since then has grown to become a popular method that is used across a range of organizations to generate a large volume of breakthrough ideas at a very rapid speed and solve problems creatively by having multiple teams concurrently work on a theme or challenge.
The approach uses simple but rigorous process maps that depict design thinking techniques. This allows anyone even with no background in design to learn and practice creative problem-solving while solving an assigned challenge as part of a team.
Design Swarms™ bring together swarm behaviors and design thinking to increase creative velocity through collective design. Design Swarms™ have helped organizations to tap into the unused creativity of employees, partners, and customers.
Design Swarms was nominated for Smithsonian National Design Awards and was the process used by the winners of the Frontier Design Prize 2022.
Everything you ever wanted to know about Design Swarms….
What is the output of Design Swarms?
The output is an MVX (Minimum Viable Experience) which is made up of an Idea Pitch, a Customer Scenario, a Storyboard and a BXT (Business-Experience-Technology) validation.
The MVX is shared with the team and management in lively and fun presentations
The MVX can be tested with customers (typically with a remote testing platform)
The MVX acts an input for a Design Sprint or a Hackathon, providing directional guidance to an MVP
How long is a Design Swarms Workshop?
The typical length of a Design Swarms workshop is 1 or 2 days
Can scale down to 4 hours (with a focus on ideation)
Can scale up to 5 days (resulting in prototypes or an MVP)
Who participates in Design Swarms?
Product team members of all disciplines. No prerequisites required.
Customers: The process can also be used to enlist customers as partners in the design process. When you tap into the insight and creativity capacity of customers, it increases your velocity, improves product-market fit, and ensures you build what customers really need and are willing to pay for.
What are the benefits of Design Swarms?
Help to uncover and address the ‘why’ of an endeavor
Help balance building the right product & building the product right
Help discover unexpected opportunities and highlight blind spots
Help to rally the team around a product North Star
Help a team move together from Why > What > How
Can be used as a co-design platform to design with customers
Help team alignment by immersion into the real needs of customers
Discover knowledge and creativity resident within the team members
Highlight capabilities that each discipline and person on the team brings
Help the teams to work together to embrace ambiguity and think creatively
Have a meaningful conversation with or about stakeholders and customers
Create a fun and safe cocoon within which teams can take creative risks
More info on Design Swarms
Video: Introduction to Design Swarms – 2-minute video
Podcast: Rosenfeld Review: Unleashing Swarm Creativity to Solve Enterprise Challenges
Article: Google Relay: Operationalizing Inclusive Design With Design Swarms
Video: IDSA Keynote: Design Powered Planet
Video: Products That Count: Using Swarm Creativity to Co-design with Customers
Video: Google Sprint conference: Design Swarms™ & Adapting the Design Thinking Process
Video: T-Mobile: Design Swarms™ - Agile Innovations in a Day
Video: TEDx Hong Kong: Design Swarms
Article: Design Swarms™: Hacking Ohio's Opioid Crisis
Article: Design Swarms™: A Design Process with a Twist
Article: UX Collective: Design Swarms: A Look Inside a Design Hackathon
Podcast: Authentic Design Founder on Building With Design Swarms™
App: Preview of Design Swarms Mobile App (password: designswarms)
Video: iToday Conference: Solve Problems at Scale with Design Swarms