When I am either teaching Design Thinking or facilitation a Design Thinking project, I work with my client to make sure we have real issues that the company is having as the basis of the sessions. Usually these sessions involve 35 to 40 participants from the client, so I am able to break them up into groups of 5 per team. The next step is that assign the issue to each team. I have always given each team an issue that they do not work on or are responsible for. Originally, I did this in order to get a fresh perspective on the issue. Over time my reason for this has become purposeful. At the end of the multi-day session I have a Q&A period to discuss what was learned through the process. Normally someone will say “I thought we have a hard time with this problem as we did not have a subject matter expert in the group.” I normally then say “Oh yes you did!”

Who is the subject matter expert in Design Thinking? The answer is The User. Most people think that an internal subject matter expert is needed, and this is a continuation of the company-centered approach to most problem framing and solving. As Design Thinking is a User-centered approach, and solving the User’s needs is at the forefront of this approach, why should the User not be the subject matter expert?

Though the User is not in the room, the User Research and deliverables that follow (personas, empathy maps, customer journey maps, etc..) create concrete representations of the user and through empathy we use these to create the subject matter expert. How many times, in a session do I not here one of the participants saying “Tom (our persona) would not think that is a helpful solution.”

Take Away:

User Research is a crucial step in the Design Thinking approach and creating a subject matter expert that is believable and understandable will be the difference between success and failure.