How to run a design thinking workshop when you have never run one

On-Off Group

October 2026

To run a design thinking workshop for the first time, pick one live problem with a named owner, bring real customer input into the room, run four timed blocks (frame, ideas, choose, prototype), and agree who does what by Friday before anyone leaves.

If you have been asked to run a design thinking workshop next month and you have never facilitated one, this is the order to do things in. It is written for team leads who have been told to run the session themselves.

We have run these sessions for Philippine banks and insurers since 2015. The sessions that work have a real problem in them, and someone in the room who can approve a change. The exercises matter less than that.

So, in order.

Pick one live problem, with a name attached

The usual brief is vague. "We want the team to think more innovatively." Two weeks later you are choosing icebreakers for a problem nobody has defined, and on the day the room spends the first hour arguing about what the session is for.

So do the boring part first. Go back to whoever asked for the workshop and get one problem written in one sentence, with a number in it if a number exists. "Onboarding takes eleven days and we do not know where the days go." "Branch staff re-key the same customer details three times." Then find out who owns that problem and get them in the room for the whole session, not just the closing.

One problem is enough for half a day. Two problems and the room just talks, with nothing decided. If your sponsor hands you three, ask which one they would fix this quarter, and park the rest on a flipchart where everyone can see they were not ignored.

If you want a plain explanation of the method and what a team does in the room, read What is design thinking and what a team does in the room.

Bring real customer input into the room

Most first workshops run on opinion. Twelve people in a meeting room, all senior, all guessing what customers find hard. The ideas that come out sound sensible and none of them are grounded in anything.

Fix this in the week before. Record three or four short calls with real customers, or with branch staff who handle the complaints. Ten minutes each is fine. Ask them to show you the last time they did the task, and keep quiet while they do it.

Then play two or three clips at the start of the session. Watching a customer get stuck on something everyone assumed was simple changes the room. On a series of five day design sprints with a large insurer, the drop-off points on the web journeys were obvious as soon as we watched people use them. Nobody argued about where the problem was after that.

If you cannot record anything, bring the complaints log and read five entries out loud, word for word.

Build the agenda as four timed blocks

The fear when you have never facilitated is that you will run out of material. What actually happens is the opposite. One exercise eats ninety minutes and you never get to the part where a decision is made.

Use four blocks and put a clock on each one:

Frame it. The problem sentence, the customer clips, and a map of the current steps on the wall. Forty minutes.
Ideas. Everyone writes silently first, then shares. Writing silently first stops the loudest person setting the direction. Thirty minutes.
Choose. Sponsor votes last, after hearing the room. Twenty minutes.
Make something rough. Paper, slides, a click-through. Rough enough to build in an hour, clear enough that someone can try it and tell you what is wrong. Sixty minutes.

Write the times on the wall. When a block overruns, say so out loud and move. Cutting off a good discussion feels rude, but it is how you get to a decision.

Run the room without doing the thinking

New facilitators talk too much. You know the subject, so you answer the questions, tidy up other people's wording, and after a couple of hours you are the one having the ideas while the room watches.

Things that help. Ask the question, then count to five in your head before filling the silence. Write what people say in their words, not your improved version. When two people disagree, put both options on the wall and let the sponsor pick. When someone says "compliance will never allow it", write it as an assumption to check rather than a dead end.

And get people standing up and moving things around. Ideas typed into slides stay vague. On the wall you can group them, argue about them and throw some away.

If you have operations, IT, marketing and risk in the same room, Design thinking training for bank teams describes how those sessions are run.

Write down the before number

This is the step everyone skips, and it decides whether your boss believes the day was worth it. A month later someone asks whether it worked, and with no starting number all you have is a shrug and some photographs of sticky notes.

Before the room closes, agree one number that describes the problem today. Current turnaround time. Completion rate on the form. Number of calls per week about the same issue. Write it on the wall, take a photo, put it in the follow-up email.

It does not need to be a proper measurement exercise. A rough honest number beats a precise one you invent later. On those five day sprints with a large insurer, the before number was six months or more from idea to live. The new journeys were designed and tested with customers in two weeks and live in four, and the share of customers finishing the journey rose 80 per cent. We can only say that because the starting point was written down first.

Close with two or three actions and a name on each

The last twenty minutes decide whether anything happens. Skip the recap. Take two or three actions, each with a person's name and a date, and read them out loud so nobody can opt out later.

Keep them small. "Show the paper version to five customers next week." "Get the current turnaround time from ops." If an action needs a budget request, it will not happen, so take the part of it that needs no budget.

Send the photos and the actions the same day while people still remember the room. Then put a date in the diary to check the number.

What to do this week

Get the problem written in one sentence, with a number in it if one exists, and confirm the sponsor will stay for the whole session.
Record three short calls with customers or branch staff and cut the two clips you will play first.
Draft the agenda as four timed blocks and give someone a copy so they can hold you to the clock.
Decide the one before number you will write on the wall, and find out today whether it is available.
Book a room with wall space. In a boardroom with nowhere to stick paper, the workshop turns back into a meeting.

If you need a shorter format with a working prototype at the end, What is a design sprint and what you have at the end of it explains how a sprint differs from a workshop.

Questions people ask

How long should a first design thinking workshop be?
Half a day is enough for one problem if you have done the prep. Two days with no clear problem to work on will produce sticky notes and nothing else.

How many people should be in the room?
Six to twelve, and they should include someone who does the work every day, such as branch staff, plus someone who can approve a change.

What should exist at the end of the session?
A rough version of one idea that someone outside the room can react to, a note of the current turnaround time or completion rate, and two or three owners with dates.

What if nobody in the room has customer research?
Record three or four short calls with real customers or staff in the week before. Clips of real people struggling do more in the room than a research summary.

On-Off Group trains teams, tests products with real customers, finds where a transformation has stalled and builds what gets it moving, for banks, insurers and enterprises in the Philippines, since 2015. How we help with design thinking.