Wonder why, despite the effort, commitment, and belief in the success of your products or services, you fail to bring them to market? Why don't customers buy them if they are perfect? Take a few steps back and analyze the design process once again. Check if you have taken all the stages into account. Or maybe you've become too attached to your idea and don't want to modify it even if research and test results indicate such a need?
Watch this WaysConf session, then continue with related talks or explore the current programme.
An energetic exploration of how design processes fail when teams follow methods without curiosity, trust, or participation. The talk moves through individual thinking styles, question-led leadership, stakeholder mapping that includes non-human actors, embodied facilitation, memory, play, and improvisation. Tools are not the process by themselves: they should help people see relationships, contribute perspectives, and respond to what emerges. The five traps are less about choosing the wrong workshop template than creating a process in which the facilitator already owns the answer, participants cannot influence it, and uncertainty is treated as a problem to hide.
People interpret information and solve problems differently, so one facilitation format will not reveal every useful perspective.
Watch from 7:52Questions invite ownership only when the facilitator is willing to be changed by the response rather than seeking confirmation.
Watch from 13:50Materials, environments, institutions, and ecological actors can influence outcomes even when they cannot attend a workshop.
Watch from 20:40Movement, objects, humor, and sensory cues can help participants remember and discuss an idea beyond the meeting.
Watch from 26:11Improvisation works when participants notice what others create and help the shared story continue instead of defending a plan.
Watch from 36:36These concise notes were edited from automatic captions and checked against the talk structure. They are not a verbatim transcript.
People differ in how they absorb information, form ideas, and speak in groups. A workshop that rewards fast verbal responses may hide careful or visual thinking. Facilitators should vary individual reflection, conversation, mapping, making, and movement, then explain the purpose of each activity so participants can contribute without performing one preferred style.
Watch from 7:52Asking for input can become manipulation if the facilitator accepts only responses that support the planned solution. A genuine question creates some risk that the process will change. Teams build trust when they listen, show how input affects the next step, and state honestly which constraints or decisions are not open for discussion.
Watch from 13:50A stakeholder map focused only on customers and decision-makers may overlook materials, infrastructure, regulation, ecosystems, and future communities. Representing a non-human actor such as soil can expose dependencies and consequences that the room would otherwise ignore. The exercise is useful when it changes a decision rather than serving as a decorative provocation.
Watch from 20:40People remember experiences differently from slide content. Movement, objects, humor, and sensory cues can make an abstract relationship easier to recall and discuss. The technique should support the learning objective and remain accessible; facilitators need alternatives for participants who cannot or do not want to take part in a particular physical activity.
Watch from 26:11An improvised process cannot be controlled in advance, but it can have principles. Attend closely, accept useful contributions, and add something that lets another person continue. This stance helps design teams work with uncertainty because participants stop protecting individual ownership and begin building a direction from the evidence and ideas already present.
Watch from 36:36
