5. THINK WRONG TO BREAK FREE OF THE STATUS QUO.
Our first think wrong exercise was a simple one: We call it “Go to lunch.” Over noodles we asked ourselves, “How can we think wrong about the cover for the think wrong issue of STEP magazine?” At the same time we were wondering about another article STEP wanted to do on the same theme: How would three other designers think wrong? The two ideas came together. Our bias was to keep the cover for ourselves, so we became determined to give it up, inviting the participants in the think wrong demonstration to create their own covers along with us. We knew that the one task that would have the greatest impact on our ability to help STEP would be whom we invited to join the design team.

OUR INITIAL LIST WAS AFFECTED BY SOMETHING CALLED “IN-GROUP BIAS.”

Its limiting effect: We named designers we knew, admired, were comfortable working with, and whom we perceived as members of our own group. In other words, the usual suspects.

To generate a rich list of designers from outside our established network—to escape our in-group bias—we designed a simple think wrong exercise using a wide range of criteria, sorting potential candidates:

By geography (inside U.S., outside U.S., and emerging countries)

By STEP sales centers (New York City, the Midwest, and San Francisco)

By age (30s and under, 40-ish, 50-ish, and old pros)

By design discipline (architects and furniture, photographers, industrial designers, and experience designers)

The result: several lists of less-usual suspects from whom we selected three external collaborators.

BUILD YOUR OWN THINK WRONG EXERCISE.
The exercises discussed in this issue might be irrelevant to the way you work and your immediate problem, or they might be just plain embarrassing. When you design your own exercises, keep these criteria in mind:

MAKE THE EXERCISE PREEMPTIVE: Like a good magic trick or a good story, it should invite the suspension of disbelief; the exercise should make it almost impossible for participants to say, “No, that won’t work.”

TAKE A SHORT STEP INTO A PARALLEL UNIVERSE: Start with a concrete example of a problem in a different space; borrow, beg, and steal from that different context—but keep building bridges back to your client’s aspiration and desired results.

FIT THE EXERCISE TO THE PARTICIPANTS: People have their own ingrained ways of solving problems; shake them up—but don’t shut them down.

MAKE IT FAST: Capture whatever comes out of that first burst of thinking wrong; when that initial energy subsides, or when participants start second-guessing themselves, it’s time to move on to the next exercise.

MAKE IT FUN: If it’s not fun, no one will make the effort to take part.

Take an object, a role, or an experience that is totally unrelated to the immediate problem and use that as your starting place. Two experiences we like, sort of, are amusement parks and death.

The Theme Park
Good for:
Understanding where the problem you have been asked to solve fits in the big picture of your client’s offer by helping them describe the ideal experience they envision for their customers.
Instructions:
- Ask your client to draw a picture of their offer as an amusement park their customers would want to visit.
- What are the rides and attractions that their customers enjoy?
- What kinds of employees staff the park, and what are their roles?
- Who comes to visit the park, and what is their experience like?
- How do you attract people, what makes them happy, what makes them crazy?
- What will visitors remember most, and what will make them want to come back?
- Supplies and stimulus: Create an oversized poster or a template that the client can work on with you. Bring in a graphic recorder or an illustrator to help your client bring their vision to life.

The Obit
Good for:
Creating a rich emotional context and inspiration for the solutions you will generate; helping your client describe their real aspirations—what they would like their legacy to be; moving the conversation beyond financial results, features, and functions to the social, political, and economic impact they want to have on the world.
Instructions:
- Ask your client to imagine that their organization has died. Don’t elaborate on why—just like the dinosaurs, one day they are extinct. Ask them to write their own obituary.
- How do they want to be remembered?
- What were their major accomplishments?
- What will people (customers, colleagues, employees, and competitors) say about their passing?
- Who will give their eulogy? Where will they give it? To whom? - And using what kind of media?
- Ask your client if they would be proud to post the obituary in their reception areas, hallways, offices, and break rooms. If not, there is a disconnect between what they believe is possible and what they really want to accomplish. And in that gap lives another opportunity for you to help them.
- Supplies and stimulus: Create an obituary page from The New York Times. Make an oversized version and let your clients fill in the information.