5. Mental Model Diagrams as Opportunity Maps

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Recorded Lectures + Live Group Sessions

Visit the page at this link to purchase only the recorded lectures for this course.

Wednesdays at 10:30am San Francisco time

Thursdays at 5:30pm San Francisco time

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About this course

Summary

Opportunity maps are tools for design strategy & inclusivity. They force you to look at your solutions through the perspective of people trying to accomplish their own purposes.

The other courses in this series cover how to create the diagrams. This is how to use them.

Opportunity maps are a powerful, mind-blowing way to see where you are making assumptions and decide how to methodologically, consciously, purposefully patch them. In this course, you’ll get to explore many examples of how organizations in software, manufacturing, insurance, higher education, and tech have discovered new clarity and product directions over the past decade. You’ll learn how to layer data from other research on the diagrams. You’ll see how to find gaps and weaknesses, measure progress, and even create scenarios for different thinking styles to help you create multiple ways for people to achieve their purposes.

Organizations use opportunity maps to clarify and categorize the potential paths hidden in front of them.

Above the horizontal line of a mental model diagram is a city-skyline picture of how the people you support think their way through their purpose. Mapped below street level, under each building, is the foundation, containing everything your organization does to support each tower. These diagrams are long-lived; each year you will add a little more knowledge to them. You will see a little further into your future. You can layer data from other research on top of the towers, measure progress toward better support for each thinking styles, and fill in the gaps beneath towers your organization is positioned to support. It’s an incredible way to confidently, systematically discover your potential.

You will learn how to:

• practice the neutral mindset of understanding people as people
• map your org’s capabilities to the towers in a mental model diagram
• look at your products & services through the perspective of people trying to accomplish their purpose
• analyze gaps & weaknesses from the perspective of the people you seek to support
• discover if your support is skewed to one thinking style, and if that is unintentional
• create support for perspectives and approaches you had not considered before
• pivot safely and quickly using the opportunity map
• measure how well you are truly supporting people
• create a matrix of scenarios for clarity in what “support” really needs to encompass
• mesh with JTBD and Design Thinking, providing richer, longer-lived data to feed process

Course Features:

• Downloadable diagrams & learning tools
• Exercises and practice during the live group sessions
• Counts toward Certficate of Problem Space Research
• Slack workspace membership

Other Languages

Take this course in Chinese through UXOffer:

Previous start dates

7-Jul-21 | 24-Jun-20 | 12-Jun-19

4. Thinking Styles

5. Mental Model Diagrams as Opportunity Maps

6. Framing Your Study