Berlin gets creative with Design Thinking

In September, Berlin Travel Massive hosted a Design Thinking Workshop, led by local member Nicole Cogiel. In small teams, the participants ran through a creative process in order to find solutions for making travel better.

This event recap was written by Berlin co-leader Lydia Band, who is also the Program Manager for the Berlin Travel Festival.

The workshop was hosted at The Place, an innovative co-working space for doers, thinkers, and entrepreneurs of all kind.

What is Design Thinking?

The solution-based methodology of Design Thinking helps teams to go through a creative process and come up with new ideas and products to solve a specific problem or question.

The process is highly centered around the user and this method not only wants you develop ideas quite fast, but also to fail fast, in order to come up with a successful, final solution.

Design Thinking consists of five different stages: Empathize, Define (a Problem), Ideate, Prototype and Test.

Nicole believes that through deeply rooted design thinking and being creative with the design methods you use, you will get the best results for your products, services and strategies. Her deep experience as a strategist for the tourism industry was easily translated through her energy and passion to help the participants develop creative ideas in this 3-hour workshop.

What happened at the workshop?

Nicole first provided an overview of the Design Thinking method and then introduced the challenge for the evening: “How might we improve travel?”

With this challenge in mind, the group was split into teams of five which dove into the art of sensing, experiencing problems with great curiosity and empathy. With every step of the workshop, team members noticed how their creative potential and confidence was unlocked.

As the first step, the groups defined the user and learned more about their travel-related needs, challenges, and experiences in an interview through empathetic listening and lots of “whys”.

In the second step, each group defined a problem statement for their user – from problems for traveling dog owners to a lack of sustainable offers to too much travel planning, the challenges each group identified were quite diverse.

The most creative part started with the prototype phase. With role plays, story boards and crafted products, each team presented their solutions and products to all groups for feedback.

What solutions did the groups design?

It was amazing to see how many different ideas were developed in just three hours – here is what the five groups came up with to make travel better for their specific users:

• A platform, where locals vote for your travel destination based on your interested and needs and and then meet you in the destination to plan your travel itinerary
• An app to connect travelers with dogs with local dog lovers at the destination for dog-friendly travel tipps, doggie playdates, etc.
• Combining space travel with sustainability
• A food concept that connects travelers with local chefs to create new dishes based on the visitors’ dietary requirements and local ingredients
• An app with gamification aspects that rewards return visitors to Berlin and encourages them to discover sustainable places in the city

Although most of the participants joined after a long day of work, everyone came up with interesting and creative ideas and enjoyed this interactive and hands-on experience.

— Thanks, Nicole, for leading this fantastic workshop!

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