What is Design Swarms?

The Design Swarms framework was first developed in 2014, and since then has grown to become a popular method that is used across a range of organizations to generate a large volume of breakthrough ideas at a very rapid speed and solve problems creatively by having multiple teams concurrently work on a theme or challenge.

The approach uses simple but rigorous process maps that depict design thinking techniques. This allows anyone even with no background in design to learn and practice creative problem-solving while solving an assigned challenge as part of a team.

Design Swarms™ bring together swarm behaviors and design thinking to increase creative velocity through collective design. Design Swarms™ have helped organizations to tap into the unused creativity of employees, partners, and customers.

Design Swarms was nominated for Smithsonian National Design Awards and was the process used by the winners of the Frontier Design Prize 2022.

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Everything you ever wanted to know about Design Swarms….

What is the output of Design Swarms?

The output is an MVX (Minimum Viable Experience) which is made up of an Idea Pitch, a Customer Scenario, a Storyboard and a BXT (Business-Experience-Technology) validation.

The MVX is shared with the team and management in lively and fun presentations

The MVX can be tested with customers (typically with a remote testing platform)

The MVX acts an input for a Design Sprint or a Hackathon, providing directional guidance to an MVP

How long is a Design Swarms Workshop?

The typical length of a Design Swarms workshop is 1 or 2 days

Can scale down to 4 hours (with a focus on ideation)

Can scale up to 5 days (resulting in prototypes or an MVP)

Who participates in Design Swarms?

Product team members of all disciplines. No prerequisites required.

Customers: The process can also be used to enlist customers as partners in the design process. When you tap into the insight and creativity capacity of customers, it increases your velocity, improves product-market fit, and ensures you build what customers really need and are willing to pay for.