Blogs

I have always been enamoured by Mandala drawings, but never thought it was my cup of tea to draw one. However, when a question came up in an online Design Thinking live session came up from a learner, I ended up drawing one, or I think it looks like one.

Design Thinking, as a skill, can be learnt by practicing the methodology on real world problems. I run an online course on Design Thinking on a Govt. of India platform called SWAYAM where close to 32,000 learners have learnt Design Thinking already.

What I have got in return (apart from lots of love 😍) is the variety of questions that have been asked by so many curious learners. This Ask the DT Doc series can be helpful to anyone – a beginner, intermediate or advanced learner of Design Thinking. (Also checkout https://dt.balaramadurai.net for the book on Design Thinking)

This post will cover the question “Is Design Thinking a 4-stage or a 5 stage process?”

How do we help an octagenarian remember better?

By technovators in Teaching

2022-02-22

This is a guest post written by a team of enthusiastic people who got together for a Design Thinking workshop and worked on helping an octagenarian to remember better. You can read the list of team members in the author description. This case study is complete with a working prototype (Scroll to the end to interact with an embedded prototype of an app). Thanks Lakshay and team for your active contributions to the Karmic Design Thinking repository ❤.

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Ask the Design Thinking Doc - Why the question "Why" is essential in your life

in Teaching

2022-02-16

An imaginary island. A handful of people forced to serve under an evil man. His compassionate daughter eyeing the leader of the forced labourers. Makings of a great masala movie.

Yes, this was the point where, the leader of the forced labourers, the Tamil Matinee idol, MGR (Actor MG Ramachandran) sang on screen “Yen endra kelvi ingu ketkaamal vaazhkai illai” or “There is no life without asking the question ‘Why’”.

This song was from the movie “Aayirathil oruvan”, the 1965 blockbuster.

The question “why” is very essential not only in that movie, but in Design Thinking as well.

Design Thinking, as a skill, can be learnt by practicing the methodology on real world problems. I run an online course on Design Thinking on a Govt. of India platform called SWAYAM where close to 32,000 learners have learnt Design Thinking already.

What I have got in return (apart from lots of love 😍) is the variety of questions that have been asked by so many curious learners. This Ask the DT Doc series can be helpful to anyone – a beginner, intermediate or advanced learner of Design Thinking. (Also checkout https://dt.balaramadurai.net for the book on Design Thinking)

This post will cover the question “How do I apply the Multi-Why technique in a complicated problem and in a large team?”

How to convert your ideas into visual means by sketching

in Teaching

2022-02-08

Visually, you can convey and retain a ton of information compared to printed or spoken media. Curious how you can achieve this?

Sketching.

Ask the Design Thinking Doc - How to describe a conflict

in Teaching

2022-02-01

Design Thinking, as a skill, can be learnt by practicing the methodology on real world problems. I run an online course on Design Thinking on a Govt. of India platform called SWAYAM where close to 32,000 learners have learnt Design Thinking already.

What I have got in return (apart from lots of love 😍) is the variety of questions that have been asked by so many curious learners. This Ask the DT Doc series can be helpful to anyone – a beginner, intermediate or advanced learner of Design Thinking. (Also checkout https://dt.balaramadurai.net for the book on Design Thinking)

This post will cover the question “How do I describe a conflict between the customer and the manufacturer?”

How to write a novel-Ideas a plenty

in Writing

2022-01-26

So many people in the past have told me “I have an idea for a novel” or “There is a novel in everyone” or “Bah.. I can write better than that novel that I just read”.

Translating these words into action requires, brace yourselves,

inspiration.

Nope, wrong answer. The answer is actually very simple - writing.

Not:

learning about writing
reading other people’s work
contemplating how your fans will be clamouring for your autograph once your book reaches the top of the book stack.

In this series, I’ll detail out my process of writing a novel. How I converted a simple idea into 70,000 (Scrabble Queen) and 80,000 (Penniless) word manuscripts?

But, is it just writing? So, if you keep writing for a year, will you have a novel at the end of the year?

Yes, in many cases. In my case, my intention was to plan out the details of the book first before diving headlong into writing.

I consider this an architect or an engineer’s approach to writing fiction.

More posts will come out soon detailing the process. Hang tight!

Ask the Design Thinking Doc - How do I visualize the pet-hair clothes problem?

in Teaching

2022-01-19

Design Thinking as a skill can be learnt by practicing the methodology on real world problems. I run an online course on Design Thinking on a Govt. of India platform called SWAYAM where close to 25,000 learners have learnt Design Thinking already.

What I have got in return (apart from lots of love :)) is the variety of questions that have been asked by so many curious learners. This Ask the DT Doc series can be helpful to whoever is either a beginner, intermediate or advanced learner of Design Thinking. (Also checkout https://dt.balaramadurai.net for the book on Design Thinking)

This post will cover the question “How do I draw out a customer journey map for a pet hair on a human being?”

Knowledge Management - A tough nut to crack

in Teaching

2022-01-12

Knowledge management is the preservation and continuation of knowledge with a group of individuals. This could be in a company, family/household, college, roommates, etc.

Larger the group of people, the trickier it gets to manage the flow of information and preservation of knowledge, as we in a company that I worked for, found out. This was the time when I worked for a high profile team in a large company, not so difficult to guess, considering that I only worked for a few companies in my adult life :)

COEXIST - Actionable Stories for Sustainable Change - The End

in Writing

2021-08-05

The final battle, challenge, finale, climax

You can call it whatever you want. This is it!

You’ve been prepping the hero and their team for, the entire story. Let’em have it all. There are certain battles which are epic and form their own story (You can apply the COEXIST structure just for the ending sequences).

Let’s recap. In the COEXIST storytelling method, we

chose a hero and an issue in step C;
wrote our grand story in one-line in step O;
made our hero “get out” of their comfort zone in step E;
gave them an external threat for them to battle in step X;
moved the hero from reaction to action in step I;
removed the help of their best friend/mentor in step S;
pitted them against the very thing that they never faced before on their own in step T;
and now, describe the final face-off in its entirety and give them something special as well.

Let’s go back to the stories that we have been tracking.

In Finding Nemo, Nemo, Marlin and Dory ask the fish to fight against the might of the fishing net. “Just keep swimming” is the mantra that these three tell all of the fish caught in the net. Marlin’s son does manage to free up all the fish and Dory, however Nemo lies at the ocean floor. Of course, Marlin, Dory and Nemo are united and as a special, we meet offspring, the Turtle, as the exchange student.

In The Matrix, after several failed attempts at being stopped, Neo reaches a telephone to be transported back to the real world. He faces his last challenge, he is shot by the agent at point blank range. Trinity throws a contradictory statement at Neo, which somehow revives him. He is now unstoppable and destroys Agent Smith. As a bonus, we see Neo do a flying thing at the end.

In Titanic, the tough challenge is to gain her senses to attract the attention of the rescuers, evade Cal and enter the US. She becomes an actress and finally has the heart to throw the Heart of the Ocean necklace into the… well… ocean.

How do you perform the final step of The End?

COEXIST - Actionable Stories for Sustainable Change - T - Tough challenge

in Writing

2021-07-14

“What makes heroes heroes?” It is the ability to surmount tough challenges that everyone else before them gave up on.

So far, the hero has always had some help and they never truly believed in themselves or their own ability. The heroes were never in such a hopeless situation all by themselves before. We, as authors, have really set them up so that they can excel at what they are really good at, in the story - Be a Hero!

Let’s recap. In the COEXIST storytelling method, we

chose a hero and an issue in step C;
wrote our grand story in one-line in step O;
made our hero “get out” of their comfort zone in step E;
gave them an external threat for them to battle in step X;
moved the hero from reaction to action in step I;
removed the help of their best friend/mentor in step S;
and now, pit them against the very thing that they never faced before on their own.

Let’s go back to the stories that we have been tracking.

In Finding Nemo, Marlin has to now fight his worst enemy, his own parental instinct, to let his son do his own thing. The toughest challenge he faces is to help Dory, who is caught in a fishing net, while protecting his son, Nemo.

In The Matrix, Neo has to now fight his worst enemy, Agent Smith. One of the toughest challenges he faces is Agent Smith in the subway station, followed by many more interactions with the Agents, all this while trying to get back to the ship within time (There are sentinels attacking the ship in the real world).

In Titanic, Rose has to now fight for survival against all odds. With Jack gone, Rose has to get picked up by the rescue teams, not be detected by Cal and still make a life for herself as she had promised Jack before he died.

How do you perform the step of T - Tough Challenge?