Wednesday, March 26th, 2008
Full-day Workshop, 8:30 a.m. – 5:30 p.m.

Leisa Reichelt

Collaboration, Creativity, and Consensus in User Experience Design

Leisa Reichelt, disambiguity.com

Is your project team struggling to create a shared product, service, or design vision? Are your collaborative techniques for building designs unproductive or ineffective? Are you unsure of how to provide clear and definable objectives in your collaboration sessions with your design team?

Performing user experience design by yourself is a daunting task, but taking the process to another level by involving your project team and your client productively can present a whole new set of challenges. Each discipline on the team may work independently and avoid cooperation, leading to fragmented vision and disparate project goals. How can you build collaboration and consensus into your project methodology?

In this hands-on workshop, Leisa Reichelt will teach you practical techniques for fostering collaboration, creativity, and consensus in your design team and with your stakeholders. You'll learn how to involve your project team and your clients throughout your project lifecycle to improve project outcomes and minimize risk.

This seminar will provide your team invaluable tools for improving the design's user experience. You will be exposed to the techniques used by world-renowned design firms like IDEO and Adaptive Path to develop innovative products and services with their clients. You will learn:

  • How to introduce and enhance collaboration in your workplace. Current collaboration practices are time consuming, and failing to produce effective solutions that are taken seriously by the project team and clients. Leisa will teach you proven collaborative techniques for successful communication, consensus, and creativity.
  • How collaboration can deliver better project outcomes. You will learn how to take advantage of powerful collaborative approaches to generate enthusiasm and overcome resistance with your project team and clients.
  • How to conduct effective brainstorming. Most brainstorming sessions often fall completely flat, either not producing any valuable ideas or leaving the team stuck on their first good idea. You will uncover the right ways to conduct powerful brainstorming meetings that allow you to amass information, stimulate creative thinking, and develop solutions to your most daunting problems.
  • How to utilize consensus-building techniques. When your design team and stakeholders do not share a common vision, you can't accomplish anything. Leisa will share techniques, such as sticky notes, to facilitate decision-making and help make critical decisions concerning features, hierarchy, and prioritization.

Who Should Attend

If you're involved in a product or service design leadership role, or aspire to be in a product or service design leadership role, you will most benefit from the expertise and insight Leisa delivers in this workshop.

Attendees should have a good understanding of project methodologies and experience in managing or working as a member of a development team. Technical or design expertise is not necessary.

In addition to hearing all of the great insights from Leisa, you will receive a seminar notes booklet that has the key points of each exercise that can be used as a handy reference when performing the activities with your colleagues in the office.

If you want to learn how to cultivate collaboration, creativity, and consensus throughout the entire user experience design process and feel more confident introducing these techniques in your organization, this is the seminar for you!