Experience Thinking Workshop

Experience Thinking is a holistic framework that helps you design connected experiences by considering four key areas: Brand, Content, Product, and Service. In the workshop, you'll learn to start with the experience first rather than technology or business constraints, understanding how all touchpoints connect to create seamless user journeys. The methodology emphasizes empathy with users and stakeholders while tackling real-life design challenges through hands-on practice.

Tip: Think about a current project challenge from your work to practice applying Experience Thinking concepts immediately rather than starting with more generic examples.

Experience Thinking workshops focus specifically on designing connected experiences across multiple touchpoints rather than isolated user interactions. You'll learn to consider how Brand, Content, Product, and Service experiences work together throughout the complete customer lifecycle from awareness through advocacy. The approach emphasizes multi-disciplinary collaboration and understanding experience characteristics like timing, interaction, intensity, coverage, meaning, and emotion.

Tip: Reflect on your current design process before the workshop to identify where you might be solving for individual components rather than connected experiences.

Experience Thinking workshops welcome participants from diverse backgrounds including design, business, technology, marketing, and operations since the methodology values different perspectives for creating holistic experiences. No specific experience design background is required, though some familiarity with product or service development helps. The framework is designed to connect traditional organizational silos into collaborative experience creation.

Tip: Identify how your current role touches customer or user experiences, even indirectly, to understand your unique contribution to multi-disciplinary experience design discussions.

You'll learn to map experience journeys from initial awareness through ongoing relationship development, understanding how people's motivations and needs change as they move from customer (buying) to user (doing tasks) to client (advocacy and loyalty). The workshop covers designing for each lifecycle stage while maintaining connected experiences that feel cohesive rather than fragmented. This includes understanding timing, touchpoint transitions, and experience continuity.

Tip: Map out a recent purchase or service experience you've had personally to understand the customer-user-client journey before applying this thinking to your professional work.

Starting with experience first means defining what users should feel, think, and do before determining technology solutions or business processes. You'll practice creating experience visions, mapping user journeys, and designing for desired outcomes before considering implementation constraints. This approach prevents technology-driven solutions that don't serve user needs effectively. The workshop includes exercises in experience visualization and validation techniques.

Tip: Practice describing your ideal user experience in storytelling format before jumping to features or technical solutions when discussing any project.

The workshop includes hands-on exercises exploring how timing (seconds to decades), interaction (participatory engagement), intensity (flash moments to immersion), coverage (multiple touchpoints), meaning (symbolic, pragmatic, semantic), and emotion shape user experiences. You'll practice identifying and designing for these characteristics through real scenarios and collaborative activities that make abstract concepts tangible and applicable.

Tip: Observe and note the experience characteristics in your daily interactions with products and services to build awareness of how these elements influence your own experience perceptions.

People, Activities, and Places form the three core components of every experience. You'll learn to design considering who is involved (customers, users, clients, employees), what they're doing (tasks, goals, workflows), and where experiences happen (physical, digital, hybrid environments). The workshop includes mapping exercises that help you understand how these components interconnect and influence each other throughout experience design.

Tip: Document the People, Activities, and Places involved in one of your current projects to practice this framework before the workshop and identify potential gaps or opportunities.

Workshop activities use actual scenarios and examples that mirror real workplace challenges, progressing from guided practice to independent application. You'll work through complete Experience Thinking processes from problem identification through solution development, learning to navigate constraints and stakeholder requirements while maintaining experience focus. Activities include both simulated scenarios and opportunities to apply methods to your current work challenges.

Tip: Bring specific details about a current project challenge including stakeholder perspectives and constraints to get the most relevant practice during workshop activities.

You'll learn both digital and analog tools for experience mapping, stakeholder analysis, journey visualization, and collaborative design activities. Techniques include experience lifecycle mapping, touchpoint analysis, persona development, and service blueprint creation that support Experience Thinking methodology. The focus is on selecting appropriate tools for specific situations rather than mastering complex software. Tool selection emphasizes collaboration and communication over technical sophistication.

Tip: Focus on learning the thinking process behind each tool rather than memorizing specific steps, as this understanding transfers across different tools and technologies you might use later.

You'll learn to identify influence opportunities within your control while understanding dependencies and collaboration requirements for touchpoints managed by other teams. Experience Thinking helps you design for connected experiences even when you can't directly control every element, focusing on consistency, communication, and coordination strategies. Workshop activities address working within organizational constraints while advocating for user experience.

Tip: Map your sphere of influence and identify key relationships you need to build to impact touchpoints beyond your direct control rather than focusing only on what you can change independently.

Implementation planning includes identifying quick wins, building stakeholder support, establishing success metrics, and creating iterative improvement approaches that fit within existing organizational processes. You'll practice translating Experience Thinking insights into actionable project plans with realistic timelines and resource requirements. The workshop covers change management strategies and communication approaches for gaining implementation support.

Tip: Identify one small change you can implement immediately after the workshop to demonstrate Experience Thinking value before proposing larger organizational changes that require more resources and approval.

Adaptation strategies include finding integration points with current workflows, modifying tools and techniques to fit organizational culture, and gradually introducing Experience Thinking concepts rather than requiring immediate process overhauls. You'll practice identifying where Experience Thinking adds value to existing processes versus where new approaches are needed. Workshop activities address working within various organizational contexts and constraints.

Tip: Study your organization's current project workflows before the workshop to identify specific integration opportunities rather than trying to replace existing processes entirely.

Common challenges include stakeholder resistance, resource constraints, competing priorities, and difficulty measuring experience improvements. You'll learn strategies for building coalitions, demonstrating value through pilot projects, and communicating Experience Thinking benefits in terms that resonate with different organizational stakeholders. Workshop activities include problem-solving sessions that address typical implementation obstacles.

Tip: Identify your organization's primary decision-making criteria (cost, speed, quality, etc.) to frame Experience Thinking benefits in terms that align with existing priorities rather than using only user experience language.

Measurement approaches include defining experience success metrics, establishing baseline conditions, tracking implementation progress, and connecting experience improvements to business outcomes. You'll practice creating measurement frameworks that balance user experience goals with organizational objectives. Methods include both quantitative metrics and qualitative feedback collection that demonstrate Experience Thinking value over time.

Tip: Start measuring current experience performance before implementing changes so you have baseline data to demonstrate improvement rather than trying to prove impact without comparison points.

Connected experience design involves understanding how Brand, Content, Product, and Service experiences work together to create seamless user journeys. You'll practice mapping touchpoint relationships, identifying connection opportunities, and designing for consistency in user experience even when different teams manage individual touchpoints. Activities include journey visualization and gap analysis that reveal connection opportunities and potential friction points.

Tip: Document your own recent experience with a multi-touchpoint service to identify where connections felt seamless versus where you experienced friction or confusion between different interaction points.

Holistic design considers all experience components (People, Activities, Places) and characteristics (timing, interaction, intensity, coverage, meaning, emotion) rather than optimizing individual elements in isolation. You'll practice systems thinking that reveals how changes in one area impact other parts of the experience. Workshop activities help you develop this perspective through mapping exercises and scenario analysis.

Tip: Practice explaining how a small change in one part of a user experience might impact other touchpoints to develop holistic thinking skills before applying this to complex design challenges.

Balancing the four experience areas involves understanding how each contributes to overall user experience while identifying potential conflicts and synergies between them. You'll practice evaluation frameworks that help prioritize experience elements and make trade-off decisions when perfect alignment isn't possible. Workshop activities include scenarios where you must balance competing experience requirements and stakeholder needs.

Tip: Identify which of the four experience areas (Brand, Content, Product, Service) your current role primarily influences to understand your contribution to balanced experience design.

Gap identification techniques include journey mapping, touchpoint analysis, and user feedback collection that reveal where experiences feel disconnected or inconsistent. You'll learn to spot transition problems, information gaps, emotional disconnects, and process breakdowns that fragment user experience. Addressing gaps involves both design solutions and organizational coordination strategies.

Tip: Walk through your organization's customer journey as if you were a new user to identify gaps and friction points you might not notice from your insider perspective.

Emotional continuity involves maintaining consistent emotional tone and supporting user emotional needs throughout their complete journey. You'll practice emotional journey mapping, mood analysis, and designing for emotional transitions between different experience moments. This includes understanding how emotional intensity changes throughout the experience lifecycle and designing appropriate support for each phase.

Tip: Pay attention to your emotional responses during interactions with services you use to build awareness of how emotions change throughout extended experience journeys.

Storytelling helps create narrative continuity that makes individual touchpoints feel part of a coherent experience journey. You'll practice developing experience narratives, communicating user scenarios, and using storytelling to align teams around shared experience vision. Workshop activities include story development exercises and narrative techniques that support experience design communication and stakeholder engagement.

Tip: Practice describing user experiences as stories with clear beginning, middle, and end rather than lists of features or touchpoints to develop narrative thinking that supports connected experience design.

Consistency design involves identifying core experience principles that remain constant while allowing contextual adaptation for different users, situations, or touchpoints. You'll practice creating experience guidelines, design systems, and adaptation frameworks that maintain coherence while enabling appropriate variation. This includes understanding when consistency helps versus when it constrains necessary customization.

Tip: Study how successful brands maintain consistency across very different touchpoints (online, in-store, support, etc.) to understand principles-based consistency rather than rigid uniformity.

Our workshops include varied activity formats, collaborative exercises, rapid prototyping, and dynamic group interactions that keep engagement high throughout the session. Hands-on activities involve sketching, mapping, role-playing, and building tangible representations of experiences rather than passive listening. The format balances individual work with group collaboration and includes movement and interaction that energize participants.

Tip: Come prepared to be actively engaged throughout the workshop rather than taking notes passively - be ready to participate in physical activities and group discussions.

Workshop duration varies from single-day intensive sessions to multi-day programs depending on depth and organizational needs. Full workshops typically include preparation time, intensive learning sessions, application practice, and follow-up planning. You'll need sustained attention and energy for collaborative activities rather than traditional lecture formats. Preparation might include reviewing materials or completing pre-work assignments.

Tip: Block your calendar completely for workshop time and arrange coverage for urgent responsibilities so you can participate fully without distraction from other work commitments.

Our workshops provide necessary materials including sticky notes, markers, large paper, templates, and digital collaboration tools. You might want to thinkg about examples from your current work, projects, or specific challenges you want to address during activities. Sometimes we include digital tools that require laptops or tablets for collaborative exercises and documentation.

Tip: Think about examples of current user experience challenges from your work including any user feedback, or process flow gaps to make workshop exercises more relevant and applicable.

Facilitators modify activities based on participant numbers, organizational culture, industry context, and specific challenges the group faces. Small groups enable more individual attention while larger groups provide diverse perspectives and collaboration opportunities. Activities scale through breakout sessions, rotation exercises, and varied sharing formats that accommodate different group dynamics and learning preferences.

Tip: Share your organization's specific context and challenges with facilitators before or early in the workshop so they can provide relevant examples and adapt activities to your situation.

Experience Thinking workshops balance concept introduction with immediate application through progressive exercises that build understanding while developing practical skills. You'll learn concepts through hands-on application rather than extensive lecture time. Theory and practice integrate throughout activities rather than being separated into distinct phases. The approach emphasizes learning by doing with guided reflection on Experience Thinking principles.

Tip: Engage actively in practice exercises even if concepts feel unfamiliar initially - the hands-on application often clarifies understanding better than additional explanation.

Multiple learning approaches include visual mapping, activities, analytical frameworks, and social collaboration that engage different learning preferences. Activities vary between individual reflection, small group work, and large group sharing. Visual learners benefit from mapping and sketching while analytical participants engage with frameworks and systematic approaches. Facilitators recognize and support different contribution styles.

Tip: Participate in activity types that feel less natural to you as well as your preferred learning methods to expand your Experience Thinking toolkit and collaboration capabilities.

Documentation can include activity outputs, framework templates, process guides, and reference materials that support continued Experience Thinking application. You'll receive both group work results and individual planning tools that help implement insights in your specific context.

Tip: Take notes during the workshop session rather than relying only on provided documentation to capture context and personal insights that will help you remember and apply concepts later.

Design skills include systems thinking, journey mapping, stakeholder analysis, and communication techniques that support experience design work. You'll practice moving from problem identification through solution development using Experience Thinking methodology. Skills development emphasizes process thinking and collaboration rather than specific tool mastery, building capabilities that transfer across different projects and contexts.

Tip: Focus on understanding the reasoning behind each design technique rather than memorizing specific steps so you can adapt methods to different situations in your future work.

Problem-solving development includes breaking down complex challenges into manageable components, identifying root causes versus symptoms, and generating creative solutions that serve multiple stakeholder needs. You'll practice using Experience Thinking frameworks to structure problem analysis and solution development. Capabilities include both analytical thinking and creative ideation that support innovation within practical constraints.

Tip: Practice applying problem-solving frameworks to small, familiar challenges before tackling complex organizational problems to build confidence and skill with the methodology.

Communication skills include translating experience concepts into language that resonates with business stakeholders, technical teams, and executive audiences. You'll practice creating compelling narratives, and connecting experience improvements to organizational goals. Communication development addresses both formal presentations and informal advocacy that builds support for experience-focused approaches.

Tip: Practice explaining Experience Thinking benefits in terms of outcomes that matter to your specific stakeholders (cost savings, efficiency, customer satisfaction, revenue) rather than using generic experience design language.

Confidence building happens through guided practice, successful application of techniques, and understanding how to adapt Experience Thinking approaches to your specific organizational context. We will cover change management approaches that support initiative leadership. Confidence over time would grow through seeing positive results from applying Experience Thinking methods to real challenges.

Tip: Start with small, low-risk projects where you can practice Experience Thinking approaches and build credibility before taking on larger organizational initiatives that require more stakeholder buy-in.

Continued development includes practicing techniques regularly, seeking feedback on application attempts, staying current with experience design trends, and pursuing specialized training in areas of particular interest. Skill advancement requires real project application rather than just theoretical study. You'll learn to identify areas for continued growth and resources for ongoing learning that support career development and expertise building.

Tip: Set aside regular time for Experience Thinking reflection rather than only applying techniques when immediate work demands require them - proactive development enables better application when opportunities arise.

Organizational change happens through demonstrating improved outcomes, building coalition support, and gradually shifting focus toward user experience considerations in decision-making. You'll learn change management strategies that work within existing organizational culture while introducing Experience Thinking approaches. Impact comes from showing results rather than advocating for process changes without evidence of value.

Tip: Identify influential colleagues who care about customer experience and engage them as allies in implementing Experience Thinking approaches rather than trying to create change independently.

Support building involves connecting Experience Thinking outcomes to organizational priorities, demonstrating value through pilot projects, and communicating benefits in language that resonates with different stakeholder groups. You'll practice creating business cases, sharing success stories, and addressing common concerns about experience-focused approaches. Strategies include both formal advocacy and informal influence building.

Tip: Start by improving experiences within your current sphere of influence to demonstrate value before asking for organizational process changes or additional resources.

Short-term application involves identifying quick wins that demonstrate immediate value while building foundation for longer-term experience improvements. You'll learn to show how Experience Thinking can accelerate current goals rather than competing with them. Techniques include finding experience improvements that reduce costs, increase efficiency, or solve immediate problems while supporting longer-term experience strategy.

Tip: Focus initial Experience Thinking applications on solving current organizational pain points rather than proposing new initiatives that require additional resources or timeline extensions.

Introduction strategies include starting with familiar concepts, using concrete examples, and connecting to existing work rather than presenting Experience Thinking as completely new methodology. You'll practice explaining concepts in accessible language and demonstrating relevance to current challenges. Introduction involves showing rather than telling through practical application that reveals value.

Tip: Use examples from experiences your colleagues have had as customers or users to illustrate Experience Thinking concepts before applying the methodology to your organization's work.

Integration involves finding connection points between Experience Thinking activities and current workflows rather than replacing existing processes entirely. You'll discuss adapting techniques to fit within established project timelines, resource constraints, and approval processes. Integration strategies balance Experience Thinking principles with organizational realities and existing stakeholder expectations.

Tip: Map your organization's current project processes before the workshop to identify specific integration opportunities rather than trying to overlay Experience Thinking without understanding existing workflows.

Measurement approaches include connecting experience improvements to business metrics like customer satisfaction, efficiency gains, cost reductions, and revenue impact. You'll learn to establish baseline measurements, track progress over time, and communicate results in terms that resonate with business stakeholders. Measurement strategies balance experience quality with business outcomes that support continued investment in Experience Thinking approaches.

Tip: Identify which business metrics your organization values most highly and design measurement approaches that connect Experience Thinking outcomes to these priorities rather than using only experience-specific metrics.

Momentum maintenance involves regular practice, continued learning, community building with workshop participants, and celebrating successes that demonstrate ongoing value. You'll develop plans for sustained application, resource acquisition, and skill development that support long-term capability building. Maintaining momentum requires both individual commitment and organizational support structures.

Tip: Schedule regular check-ins with workshop participants to share progress, solve implementation challenges together, and maintain accountability for applying Experience Thinking approaches in your ongoing work.