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Airplane metaphor game

Summary of the Plane Metaphor and why to use it (neuroscience reasoning) One way of organizing information is to formulate analogies and conceptual links with other things. The information can be represented by anything that helps you break out of habitual thinking patterns. We all create our reality when getting external information to our brains. We use […]

Here, There, Everywhere

We’ve all attended a meeting, taken a course, or read an article that moved us no further than to pique our interest. Putting new insights into action is the payoff for attention spent. And we multiply that payoff if we take a moment to reflect on a more broad understanding of the concept or technique […]

Choose your words wisely

Humans live in language. It defines what we do, how we do it, and why we do it. Language is the bedrock of our cultures and societies. As with fish in water, we go about our daily business without paying much attention to the language around us and how it influences us. Information architect and […]

Navigate your market opportunities

Any innovation or technological invention can be applied to serve different types of customers. Understanding your set of market opportunities increases your chances of success: It not only allows you to focus on the most promising market, but also helps you to avoid a fatal lock-in. The Market Opportunity Navigator, developed by Dr. Sharon Tal […]

Mapping Organizational Culture

Are you struggling to break down organizational silos, increase creativity, engagement and collaboration? Do you feel like the people in your company are resisting change? Is your company’s culture holding you back? Nobody denies the critical importance of culture to a company’s success. And yet, although everyone agrees that culture is of vital importance, culture […]

Mapping Design Operations

Today, companies in every industry seek to better their design capabilities: from products to services to experiences. Fueling the growing design function in large organizations is a new discipline called Design Ops, charged with scaling design and design thinking up, down, and across the organization. Does your organization have a Design Ops function? If not, […]

Update to the Empathy Map

We designed the Empathy Map at XPLANE many years ago, as part of a human-centered design toolkit we call Gamestorming. This particular tool helps teams develop deep, shared understanding and empathy for other people. People use it to help them improve customer experience, to navigate organizational politics, to design better work environments, and a host […]

Empathy Map

Empathy map, originally uploaded by dgray_xplane. The empathy map, one of Gamestorming’s methods for understanding audiences, including users, customers, and other players in any business ecosystem, has gotten some press lately because it was featured in Alex Osterwalder‘s excellent book, Business Model Generation as a tool for discovering insights about customers. Here’s how it works: […]

Building partnerships

Object of play: The partnership canvas is a tool that enables visualization of current and/or future partnerships. It can also be used for early testing of the value creating potential of a partnership between two partnership candidates. The tool’s purpose is to define your business priority for partnering, and empathize with your partner to explore whether […]

Origins of Games

Gamestorming makes vivid for me the culture in which I wish to live.  It’s a culture which meets us where we are, which encourages us to stretch and grow, just a bit at a time, with every game we play.  Each game has an object of play, and so we can feel safe that we […]

Mapping Business Models

Globalization and the emergence of digital business have changed the playing field for everyone. New business models can now rapidly disrupt an entire industry by changing the way value is delivered to customers (Look how Apple’s iTunes strategy disrupted the music industry, for example). The Business Model Canvas, developed by Alex Osterwalder, is a tool […]

Empathy Map

Empathy map, originally uploaded by dgray_xplane. The empathy map, one of XPLANE’s methods for understanding audiences, including users, customers, and other players in any business ecosystem, has gotten some press lately because it was featured in Alex Osterwalder‘s excellent book, Business Model Generation as a tool for discovering insights about customers. Here’s how it works: […]