Publisher Type: Individual author

This resource is a generative tool for creating new metaphors to help understand the world in new ways, reframe problems, generate new ideas, and imagine different futures. New Metaphors has been developed by the Imaginaries Lab, a design research studio based at Carnegie Mellon University, and working internationally. New Metaphors is a set of 150 cards and a number of simple, fun workshop formats which enable idea generation and new ways of thinking about issues creatively, from specific…

Features: Video guidance

The Venture Design Process offers set of templates, tutorials, and templates for systematic execution of continuous design and delivery. It covers the phases: Personas, Problem Scenarios & Alternatives, Value Propositions, Assumptions & Experiments, Customer Discovery & Experiments, User Stories & Prototypes, Product & Promotion, as well as modules covering agile management and business model generation. The resource is targeted at private sector entrepreneurs and focuses on digital products and…

Features: Associated curriculum, Guiding framework

The Service Sandbox is a visual, playful, co-creation tool that allows individuals to explore digital services in a tangible and interactive way. The sandbox can be used to test an existing service or to create new ones. The resource is oriented toward designing interior environments, especially digitalising environments, but could be used more broadly. The tool consists of three phases (build, ideate and define), plus a pitch template for taking the process one step further. According to the…

The Design Thinking Handbook is a comprehensive guide to the practice of design thinking and framework popularized by the Stanford d.school. The resource is organised into sections Why We Need Design Thinking, Empathize, Define, Ideate, Prototype, Test and it can be downloaded as an epub, PDF, or audiobook, or can be read in a web-based format. The text is supplemented with links to podcasts, videos, interactive exercises, and other related resources to build practice along with knowledge of…

Features: Associated curriculum, Video guidance

Uncertain Times is a set of tools for navigating uncertainty, harnessing curiosity, and maintaining mental wellbeing on a day-to-day basis. The kit is targeted towards individuals to guide personal reflection and consists of three parts: a set of cards, a workbook, and a weekly planner. The resource is inspired by Dancing at the Edge, by Graham Leicester and Maureen o’Hara and explores the behaviours and competencies required to deal with challenges that the 21st Century is throwing at…

This resource is an imagination game that challenges players to collaboratively and competitively describe objects from a range of alternative futures. The object of the game is to come up with the most entertaining and thought-provoking descriptions of hypothetical objects from different near-, medium-, and long-term futures. The card deck can be downloaded and printed and contains cards, instructions, playsheets, and blank cards that you can customize with your own content. The website also…

This canvas is a strategic design tool for developing descriptive models of transformative futures. It asks users to name the logics stabilizing the dominant regime — and then imagine how such logics might stabilize an alternative in terms of narratives, goals, core values, governance & practices, and physical inputs. Requires email address in exchange for download.

A canvas for individual sharing about work preferences, meant for building good teams and working relationships. The publisher intends for this to be used for making preferences explicit but not for making demands. PDF and Adobe Illustrator file available.

14 methods and 3 recipes suggesting how to combine them, associated with a guide book available for sale by the toolkit publisher. Accompanying each method: Purpose, Outcomes, How to do it, and Tips as well as a worked example, to help readers understand how the method and associated template can be used at the early stage of designing an innovative service.

Features: Tactics, Techniques, Tips&Tricks

This mini-book is based around the Cynefin framework, a contexutalisation and sense-making framework developed by Dave Snowden. The resource provides an overview of the Cynefin framework and use of narrative research, guidance and a tool for developing shared sense-making, and tools and guidance for developing a portfolio of experiments for different types of problems, distinguishing between complicated and complex problems. The publisher requires a free login in exchange for downloading the…

Features: Guiding framework