Creative Mindfulness: Designing with a Beginners Mindset

Part of the design process requires detaching ourselves from our personal bias, habits, and assumptions. Counterintuitively, the more we "do" design (or anything), the more challenging it is for us to return to a state where we can actively self-assess and improve our approach to problem-solving.

In this talk, I introduce creative methods to be more intentional and to carry a beginner's mindset into your work. We'll discuss how to better arm you and your teams to stay productively curious and to encourage that behavior in others.

Transcript

1. Creative Mindfulness Designing with a beginner’s mindset Emily Campbell // @elou
2. Hello I’m Emily Campbell Emily Campbell // @elou
3. Emily Campbell // @elou Hello I’m Emily Campbell
5. Not really me
6. Also not me
7. Quick experiment
8. Picture a spaceship What does it look like? What is it made of? What’s on the inside? What color is it? How big is it?
13. “Those who achieve these fundamental inventions of a new paradigm have been either very young or very new to the field whose paradigm they change.
14. “Those who achieve these fundamental inventions of a new paradigm have been either very young or very new to the field whose paradigm they change.
15. “This generalization about the role of youth in fundamental scientific research is so common as to be a cliche.
20. I didn’t know what you couldn’t do. I didn’t deliberately set out to invent anything. It just seemed to me, ‘Why not?’ There is a great gift that ignorance has to bring to anything, you know. That was the gift I brought to Citizen Kane… ignorance.
21. The gift of ignorance
22. Wait, but…
23. Constraints?
24. Repeatable?
25. Scalable?
26. Intentional? ‼
30. We need a paradigm shift
31. The beginner’s mindset
32. “In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s mind there are few.” Shunryu Suzuki, Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind
34. Design is intentional. Design with intention.
35. Challenge your… Paradigms Intention Assumptions Understanding Solutions
36. How?
37. 1. Practice mindfulness 2. Observe, without judgement 3. Encourage curiosity 4. Create a culture of learning 5. Question bias & assumptions
38. Sound familiar?
41. Mindfulness is a mindset Design Thinking is a methodology
43. Practice mindfulness 1
44. Another exercise…
46. “Mindfulness is awareness that arises through paying attention, on purpose, in the present moment, non- judgmentally. Jon Kabat-Zinn
47. How things really are, not distorted through pre-conceived ideas or interpretations
48. I see I think I feel I do
49. Observe, without judgement 2
50. Let’s return to our spaceship
51. Be present
52. Observe yourself
53. Find patterns
54. Empathize and define?
55. The empathy paradox
56. “The empathic position is one in which we know that we are not the other. Judith Stein
58. In practice: 1. Set design principles 2. Hold regular retrospectives 3. Build rituals 4. Mustard Rule
59. Encourage curiosity 3
60. How many uses can you think of for a paper clip?
61. 5 years Age 10 years 15 years 30 years 30% 12% 2% 98% Genius level George Lands, Breakpoint and Beyond
62. Divergent thinking Convergent thinking Vs
63. Practicing meditation encourages divergent thinking Meditate to Create: The Impact of Focused-Attention and Open- Monitoring Training on Convergent and Divergent Thinking
65. In practice: 1. Be inclusive 2. Safe environment 4. Ritual 3. HMW statements
66. How Might We Assume a solution exists
67. How Might We Free from judgement
68. How Might We Do it together
69. How do you entertain playful children who might irritate already frustrated fellow passengers at a local airport?
70. Amp up the good: HMW use the kids’ energy to entertain fellow passenger? Remove the bad: HMW separate the kids from fellow passengers? Explore the opposite: HMW make the wait the most exciting part of the trip? Question an assumption: HMW entirely remove the wait time at the airport? Go after adjectives: HMW we make the airport fulfilling instead of frustrating? Find unexpected resources: HMW leverage are time of fellow passengers to share the load? Create an analogy from need or context: HMW make the airport like a spa? Like a playground? Play POV against the challenge: HMW make the airport a place that kids want to go? Change a status quo: HMW make playful, loud kids less annoying? Break POV into pieces: HMW entertain kids? HMW slow a mom down?
71. Crazy 8s Round robin Storyboard S.C.A.M.P.E.R. Yes, and Opposite thinking
72. Culture of learning 4
73. The burden of expertise is we wait for the big reveal. We are less likely to be comfortable sharing our process. Failure becomes more of a state of mind than a stepping stone
74. Prototyping is the act of asking questions, not questioning answers
75. Learn fast. Fail fast. Fix fast.
76. Prototypes are abstractions of solutions
77. In practice: 1. Define your assumptions 2. Know what success means 3. Just enough to move forward
78. Question bias & assumptions 5
79. Events What happens Patterns/Trends Rules, practice, doctrine Underlying structures Mental Models Organization, authority, relationships Belief, traditions, assumptions, values Leverage points in a system
80. Events What happens Patterns/Trends Rules, practice, doctrine Underlying structures Mental Models Organization, authority, relationships Belief, traditions, assumptions, values Events
81. What do I know
82. How do I know I know this
83. What if I’m wrong
84. Conway’s law The structure of an organization is reflected in what it produces. Intentional organizations beget intentional products
85. 1. Practice mindfulness 2. Observe, without judgement 3. Encourage curiosity 4. Create a culture of learning 5. Question bias & assumptions
86. Enjoy your problems Shunryu Suzuki, Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind