Planning for Strategic Design

In response to a manager’s query about how to plan products, Alan Kay famously remarked “the best way to predict the future is to invent it.” His answer invokes a paradox at the heart of design: we can’t know the future, yet it’s what we design for. If we hope to practice design successfully in an era of complexity and rapid change, we must get better at planning.

To start, we must let go of “the plan” and embrace a dynamic way of planning that’s social, tangible, agile, and reflective. We must engage our colleagues in business and technology to align use cases, prototypes, and roadmaps with culture, governance, and process. In order to design sustainable products, services, and experiences, we must also design the context.

In this workshop, we’ll mix presentation and conversation with “planning together” exercises that invite us all to share stories, solve problems, and invent better tools for information architecture and strategic design.

Topics covered in this half-day workshop include:

* Why planning is central to information architecture and user experience.
* The relationship between strategy, architecture, design, and planning.
* How to integrate planning with Agile, Lean, and Design Thinking practices.
* Tools and methods for individuals, teams, and cross-functional collaborations.
* How to make a business case for planning and strategic design.
* Who (which roles and departments) should be involved in planning.
* How to get better at estimating cost, time, and risk.
* When you should be willing to change goals, objectives, and metrics.
* How to plan while implementing, improvising, and learning.