Design by Fire Conference 2011

Do you regularly spend more hours on your design than you had planned to? Do you experience time pressure at the end of your project, and work overtime to get it done?

Would you like to know what it takes to give a realistic estimate?

In this workshop we investigate what it is that keeps you from lowering the pressure on yourself and being realistic about the amount of time that a project takes. First we look into feelings that could play a role, such as excessive modesty, out of control perfectionism and the inclination to want to be liked. Then you learn practical tricks to improve your estimates and to convince your client to the number of hours that a job will cost. Stand up for your work and its quality.

• Morning workshop.
• Minimum of 6, maximum of 8 participants.
• Program includes lunch (13:00-14:00).

Please note: Andrei will give this workshop twice: once in the morning and once in the afternoon (see below).

Digital devices are everywhere these days! Smartphone and tablet sales are exploding, computers are in every home and business, and being tossed into this mix are internet enabled televisions, tablet form factors and low-cost netbooks. To design successful digital products and software in this era will require understanding how to design across all these platforms. It may seem untenable, but it is entirely possible. In this workshop, learn the strategies and tactics you'll need to use to successfully design products across the desktop, web browser, smartphone, tablet and beyond.

• Morning workshop.
• Minimum of 15, maximum of 20 participants.
• Program includes lunch (13:00-14:00).

Please note: Andrei will give this workshop twice: once in the afternoon and once in the morning (see above).

Digital devices are everywhere these days! Smartphone and tablet sales are exploding, computers are in every home and business, and being tossed into this mix are internet enabled televisions, tablet form factors and low-cost netbooks. To design successful digital products and software in this era will require understanding how to design across all these platforms. It may seem untenable, but it is entirely possible. In this workshop, learn the strategies and tactics you'll need to use to successfully design products across the desktop, web browser, smartphone, tablet and beyond.

• Afternoon workshop.
• Minimum of 15, maximum of 20 participants.
• Program includes drinks (17:30-18:30).

As the systems we design for become more complex, work is changing from a solo activity to a team sport, where individuals, teams, partners and customers need to work together.

Cross functional collaboration requires new skills and practices. How can you engage more people in the process, without losing the creative culture and energy that fuels the process?

Applying game thinking and game mechanics can help you quickly form simple models of complex systems, so you can involve others in your thinking, explore systems, and experience them from within to gain new insights and have serious fun while doing.

During this 1-day sleeves-rolled-up workshop you'll learn to:

• Apply a wide range of Innovation Games;
• Design workshops to solve various types of complexity;
• Generate more and better ideas faster;
• Overcome conflict and increase engagement;
• Improve collaboration and communication with visual-thinking techniques;
• Identify a problem's root cause and find the paths that point toward a solution;
• Stimulate and explore complex systems, interactions, and dynamics;
• Gain deeper understanding of complex issues;

You'll have fun doing it, and you learn that your team, customer or anybody involved in this process will do too.

• Full day workshop.
• Minimum of 10, maximum of 14 participants.
• Program includes lunch (13:00-14:00) and drinks (17:30-18:30).

The more designers examine the human experience when designing products, the more acutely attuned we become to broken experiences beyond products. If you've been frustrated by your bank, the doctor's office, the local Albert Heijn, or an airline and desire and believe you can fix these service challenges, service design is for you.

Service design offers designers a toolset to make services tangible and visible and to provide new service concepts. In this workshop, we will use some of the key service design tools to create a new service. We will envision new service concepts, act out pieces of the new service, and also rapidly generate business models to give our services a balance of human and business appeal.

By the end of this workshop, you will be familiar with:

• Customer Journey Map,
• Service Blueprints,
• Acting as Prototyping,
• Business Model Canvas.

• Full day workshop.
• Minimum of 15, maximum of 20 participants.
• Program includes lunch (13:00-14:00) and drinks (17:30-18:30).