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I’ve benefited greatly by having an adaptable design
process and knowing what tools to use in specific
situations.

The problem alignment workshop is a great

adaptable workshop.
This workshop should be used in the starting phases
of your design process.

In the design process, problem alignment will help

the team get started to understand what to focus
their efforts on first.
Sometimes just getting started is better than being
right.
This Workshop will

• Align team on the product/ feature vision.

• Uncover opportunities for your product.
• Get the team ideating on important obstacles and
blockers related to opportunities.
• Align the team on what to start solving first.
This workshop is best when run in the beginning or
understanding stages of a project.

It will help the team gather information and challenge

assumptions.

It relates to understanding our stakeholders and our

participants, helps us explore existing knowledge,
and it will help define your problem.
With an adaptable design process, you’ll be able to
make this workshop your own.

You’ll get my pro tips on what to start solving first

when starting a project.

You can use this to guide your project with alignment

and a collective understanding of the team.
I wanted to share my proven frameworks I use in my
product design process.

I want to show others how I innovate and empower

my team to come together and create great
products.
I’ve done the research, experimented with other
processes, compared notes with other leading
product designers, ran and ideated on countless
workshops, and have compiled my workshop
frameworks.
The problem alignment workshop is an exercise for
getting the team to hear each other's thoughts and
begin the product design process with the teams’
collective thoughts.

This can be for a current product or a new concept.

You’ll need the right teammates for the project.
You can use this to host your own Problem
Alignment workshop.

You’ll find an agenda, step by step workshop script,

proven problem alignment tools.

You’ll have the team’s input and alignment on what

to start solving next.
Nope.
Problem alignment is a step in the understand phase
of the design process.

The first step is just getting started, if it happens to

be problem alignment, then so be it.

Aligning the team with a problem to get started with

is one of many actions that could be taken in the
understand phase of design.
I like to ideally be doing other actions in parallel to
aligning the team with a problem.

To be short, the problem alignment workshop should

not be the first or only exercise ran in the
understand phase of the design process
For me, the starting point of any design challenge is
of course a problem.

I find it tremendously helpful to allow the team to

share their collective thoughts, hear each other out,
and align the team with the objective before heading
into the ideation phase.
Starting with Vision Quest ensures the team is
starting with a problem.

Once you’ve established the vision, you can focus on

what you want to see solved in relation to your
problem.

Then align the vision to meet the needs of

stakeholders, and users.
We work collaboratively as team to understand each
others perspectives.

This workshop allows for that opportunity to have all

team members to express their perspectives.

We’ll be doing this quietly, by writing our thoughts

down.
Producing your thoughts is more powerful than
talking about them.

We use a process that allows for everyone to express

their opinion without everyone talking over each
other.

We first work alone then share our ideas to the

group.
If everyone feels comfortable, the likelihood of your
workshop succeeding is much higher.

Ask everyone to keep a positive frame of mind and to

trust the process.
No need to get caught up in coming up with the best
ideas.

It’s more important for the team to ideate a lot of

thoughts, if you see a teammate struggling to remind
them, there are no bad ideas.
Anyone with the time to prepare and practice can
run the problem alignment workshop.

Maybe you’re stepping out of your comfort zone,

working on holding more productive meetings, or a
workshop pro, as long as you follow the instructions
you should be fine.
Having cross functional team members with insights
based on real data.

(either from research, or from being in the field

interacting with users/customers)

Co-creating personas or journey maps would move

the needle from "guessing" to "data driven inputs"
and make these sessions worthwhile
• For the problem alignment workshop, anyone on
the team that is considered a stakeholder or
subject matter expert.

• I think it’s best to have a good mix from different

segments of the business.

• “Do real research with real customers.”

I’ve facilitated workshops with people in groups of 2
to 25 for a variety of situations.

For the problem alignment workshop:

3-7 is my magic range.

3 is the bare minimum.
4-5 is ideal.
5-7 can be tricky but still very effective.
30-60 minutes

Although the workshop is timeboxed, the length of

the workshop is usually fairly dependent on the
number of participants.

The more participants the longer you can expect the

workshop to run.
It could be an online collaborative workspace.

Or

Some open space.

1. It could be a meeting room or a dedicated space.

2. White board
3. Whiteboard markers
4. Markers
5. Post it notes
6. Small circle dots
[Link]
When participating please remember:

• Work together, alone.

• Tangible items are better than discussion.
• Getting started is more important than being right.
• Don’t rely on creativity
Agenda
01. Define the vision
02. How might we…
03. Can We…

04. Decide what to execute on

The exercise should take between 40-60

minutes.
It’s problem centered.
• A good vision starts with a problem.
• What do you want to see solved in relation to your
problem?
• Will the vision align leadership, your team, your
customers, and users?
Set timer for
5 minutes
The Vision Quest should take 5
minutes to complete
Today, when_______________________________________________
Customer/ user segment

Wants to_______________________________________________
Desirable activity/ outcome

They have to_______________________________________________

Current solution(s)

Write vision on whiteboard

This is unacceptable,
because_______________________________________________
Shortcomings of current solutions

We envision a world
where_______________________________________________
Shortcomings are resolved

We’re bringing this world about

through_______________________________________________
broad technology/ approach

Write vision on whiteboard

HMW…
• Used for big picture concepts.
• Capturing the challenge.
• Aligning the team on that challenge.

HMW…
Set timer for
5 minutes
The HMW exercise should take 5
minutes to complete.
Start by explaining what the challenges are.

Everyone can have their individual turns to chip in

with their knowledge of topic.

The group listens and writes HMW statements to

rephrase the challenges they’re hearing.

Then the group can ask more questions to get

clarification and detail.
Too Too
Narrow Sweet Spot Broad
HMW… HMW… HMW…
Engage more with customers
make the button blue reinvent web search

HMW…
increase revenue with current
product?

HMW…
Encourage customers to do X
Set timer for
5 minutes
Voting should take 5 minutes to
complete
Use two dots to vote for the HMWs
you think will have the most impact.
Most import challenges to solve.

You can vote on your own.

Pick the most important challenges to

solve.
Separate the winning HMWs
its into a pyramid.

Read HMWs.

HMW... HMW...

HMW... HMW... HMW... HMW...

HMW... HMW... HMW... HMW...

Set timer for
5 minutes
The can we exercise should take 5
minutes to complete
Can we…
1 -3 Can we… questions each.

Think about questions that are most important to

answer.

Not inventing new information, base can we

questions on what you’ve learnt today

Example: Can we replace the need of third party

incentive engines and services?
Set timer for
5 minutes
The can we exercise should take 5
minutes to complete
• Read aloud your Can We...
• Place them on the wall
Set timer for
3 minutes
Voting should take 5 minutes to
complete
Use one dot to vote for the most important obstacle you
think has the biggest chance of holding us back from
moving in the right direction.
Set timer for
2 minutes
Reading Can we’s should take 5
minutes to complete
 Separate the 3 Can we’s

Decider uses red dots to understand what

the group is thinking to make their decision.

Can
we... Can Can
we... we...
Can Can
we... we... Can Can
we... we...

Can Can
we... we...
 High Impact

Can we…
Can we…

Low Effort
Can we… High Effort

Low Impact
 Can we… Can we… Can we…

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