Who are the people you’re focused on creating value with and for?
Human-centred design is the core of my professional life and has been since the early 90s. For me, this means starting with people. Always.
While I talk about solving problems that matter, I think it’s important that we look at the inherent potential of people, communities, and systems. I encourage you to take a strengths-based approach.
Please never see people as problems to solve. Deficit thinking is harmful to the people involved – and it doesn’t address the real problem and its causes.
We need to approach these problems with humility, empathy, and an understanding of the systems at play.
I take a deeply empathic human-centred design and living systems approach.
Dynamic4 People/Problem Canvas
Some tools I’ve used for years and love are the Business Model Canvas, the Lean Canvas, and the Value Proposition Canvas.
All of these great canvases and variants are just tools. I’ve found that all of them are useful, but some are more tailored to certain contexts.
You might be thinking the last thing the world needs is another canvas. I tend to agree. Which is why, when I mashed up the People/Problem Canvas in 2019, I didn’t promote it and just used it in my own practice and with the people I work with.
Why another canvas? For years I used the Lean Canvas and Value Proposition Canvas with most blocks greyed out to focus on just the elements that are important while we’re focused on the problem diamond. It’s where I spend a lot of time nudging people away from jumping into solution mode. The other blocks were a distraction.
Ash Maurya actually published the Leaner Canvas in 2019 for a similar reason.
Another challenge in the early stages is that many people I work with aren’t sure who their customers and customer segments might be yet. Especially with social enterprise ideas, where there’s often a very complex set of stakeholder interactions.
Changing “customer segments” to “people” simplified this conversation, and brought the focus to identifying who the people involved are and the roles they play. Working out who the paying customer might be and different segments flows from there.
In the early stages, we need to be focused on the people and the problem. We have those two blocks from Ash Maurya’s Lean Canvas.
To save switching between different canvases, I put the ideal customer circle from Peter Thomson’s Value Proposition Canvas in the centre – and focused it on the early adopters. The Dynamic4 People/Problem Canvas was born.
That’s the brief backstory… but how do you use it?
Read my full post where I explain the seven elements and download the free Dynamic4 People/Problem Canvas as part of the Solve Problems That Matter Worksheets.
All of the worksheets are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.
Solve Problems That Matter
In my book Solve Problems That Matter, I go into a lot more detail on all of the things I’ve covered in this post… and plenty more.
It’s a playbook with actions and worksheets to help you take a human-centred design approach to design, build, and launch your idea. Ideas that customers love, makes money, and does great things for people and our planet… all while increasing wellbeing.
Let’s Collaborate
At Dynamic4, we specialise in coaching, training, and working alongside leaders to solve problems that matter.
A key way we do this is by designing and delivering action learning experiences with masterclasses, workshops, innovation sprints, and leadership, design thinking & innovation programs.
These sessions build personal, team, and organisational capability to solve problems that matter with more:
❤️ Clarity on your purpose, goals, and approach to navigate complexity and make progress
🎯 Momentum to achieve your goals by building the workflows, rhythms, and habits for success
🌿 Confidence to move forward with more certainty and less risk while increasing your wellbeing
I also work alongside you and your design, product, and digital transformation teams to do strategic design with a focus on business, experience, and solution architecture. Delivering work while helping build internal capability.
Ready to have fun collaborating to solve problems that matter? Book a free 15-minute discovery call.
Where do you go for advice and inspiration?
This might include a coach and/or mentor, formal training, events, meetups, conferences, books, podcasts, online content etc. What are your favourites?
I’d love to hear your thoughts…
I’m doing some research with leaders who navigate complexity to lead, design, and deliver change. I’ll present the findings from my research in a report. It might even evolve into my next book.
I’m curious to learn more about how you’re adapting to meet the rapidly shifting expectations of your teams, customers, investors, and regulators.
Get involved!
Join the waitlist for the report now. You’ll be the first to get it and I’ll also share insights that are emerging during the process.
When you join the waitlist, you’re also invited to complete the survey that takes ~5 minutes, and you can express interest in being interviewed.
Ideas
A blog post from the archives and a couple of events for you…
SydDT #100: Delivering Inclusive Experiences in Public Services
Tonight (13 June) is SydDT #100! We’re lucky to have Therese Konwerski and Keith Diamond sharing some of their stories of designing inclusive digital products and services in public services.
We’ll also be celebrating a couple of milestones. Our 9th birthday… and 100th meetup! There will even be cupcakes. It’s almost sold out, but it’s not too late to grab your ticket and join us for some fun conversations with interesting people.
If you miss out you can always watch the recording. We’ve got a bunch on Youtube…
Design Outlook 24: High Fidelity
I’m looking forward to being back in Melbourne next week for Design Outlook 24: High Fidelity. DO24 will celebrate design at its best, while acknowledging the beauty in our imperfections.
There are a few tickets left, so it’s not too late to join us. Hit me up for a promo code.
I’ll be in Melbourne 17-21 June, and I’ve got some gaps in my calendar if you’re around and keen to catch up.
My Bridge Intro Story for GL[E]AM by Hayball on Bold Ideas at the Sydney Opera House
A couple of years ago, I was lucky to be a speaker at GL[E]AM 2022 Session 1 by Hayball in the Sydney Opera House Centre for Creativity. We explored the theme “What do you do with a Bold Idea? Enabling innovation”.
My friend Fiona Young from Hayball got each of us speakers to introduce ourselves using a single image. This post is the photo I took for it and my story…
Keen for some help solving problems that matter and to have some fun collaborating? Book a free 15-minute discovery call…
Have fun!
Ben
