Tools for Business Design
Tools and methods are essential to guide people through a Business Design process, to inspire and bring ideas to life. We therefore distinguish between guiding tools, inspiring tools, research tools and building tools. Please find an overview of our tools in this article.
Bernhard Doll
Business Design Maverick
Content
We cover a lot of the following tools - and especially how to put them into practice successfully - in our Certificate Program (DE). Visit our Academy and become a certified Business Design Expert.
1. Tools for Guidance
...are usually highly visual and help people communicate, share ideas and align different mental models. (don't forget: In Business Design projects we usually talk about something new nobody has seen before). They can be seen as a "shared space" that guides discussions and makes them more effective and efficient. Never attend a meeting without "shared spaces"! Be visual! No bullsh*t! Guiding tools are mainly templates and worksheets, sometimes built with office applications such as Microsoft Excel and Powerpoint, sometimes built with design applications (e.g. Adobe Creative Cloud) as large-scale posters. Please find an overview of our main Tools for Guidance here.
2. Tools for Inspiration
...are built to broaden or change your perspective on a task, problem or challenge. We use these tools in the Design Phase when coming up with new ideas to help our customers and users to get their job(s) done. Usually our insights from the Discover Phase are the best source for inspiration and teams are bubbling over with ideas. But sometimes creativity exercises to change the perspective fuel ideation. Please find an overview of these tools for inspiration here.
3. Tools for Research Support
...help us discover new territories or validate our ideas. We apply research tools in the Discover and Validate Phase. Here, we rely on well-proven methods from the world of empirical research such as structured interviews, observations, desk research, A/B studies, surveys etc. Please find an overview of research tools for the Discover and Validate Phase here and check out some of our core tools in detail.
4. Tools for Prototyping & Building
...are primarily technical tools to actually plan and build a prototype or a lean offering. They come in very different flavours from CAD tools to develop technical visualisations of a new product, to clay, foam and other modelling materials or software frameworks to easily build applications for different smartphone platforms such as Google Android or Apple iOS. The subpages give you an overview about interesting building tools for your prototyping activities.
5. Tools for Virtual Collaboration
Check out our collection of proven hardware and software tools we love to use in virtual Business Design projects incl. our web-based Project Workspace or Miro Boards.
6. Kits & Boxes
Business Design Box
Some of the key guiding and inspiring Business Design tools are part of our Business Design Box. Please drop us a line (support@orangehills.com) if you need Business Design Boxes for your projects. We can also customise the content based on your requirements.
Business Design Starter Kit
We also have a complete Business Design Starter Kit that provides you everything you need for your first Business Design project, from Business Design Boxes for every workshop participant, workshop materials, tools & gadgets, process carpets and worksheets for a full 10-week iteration.
As a certified coach, you can easily order the kit by sending us a short message (support@orangehills.com).