How many facilitators, designers or Product Owners have faced the despair of a wall covered in post-its after brainstorming? Faced with these dozens of ideas, what to do? Which proposals to keep, reject or archive?
We offer you a simple, fun and terribly effective method: the “Remember the future” workshop…
Workshop category
Framework – Analysis
The goal
It is often complicated for a designer, a client, a user to speculate on the use of a future product.
The user is not a designer; hence the clearly useless nature of this type of questioning: “ What should our product do? »
A questioning that is too vague, too open, too abstract... In the best of cases, the discourse of users on a future use is to be taken with a grain of salt: they will generalize, simplify or even idealize...
Remember the Future is a technique that limits these biases by immersing the user in a past that will appear more concrete to him.
It is also and above all a very relevant "game" to frame the content of a release, or even more to agree together on the success criteria of a mission, an intervention or a project. .
Principle
The exercise therefore helps to establish a point of reference in time, to give context and to make things more concrete. The future becomes Today ; That's good because the challenge of UX techniques, when it comes to discussing uses with customers and users, is above all to seek the present.
Expertise: 3/5
Instructions: 1/5 – duration: a few minutes
Unfolded: 3/5 duration: 40 minutes (20+20)
Analysis & restitution: 2/5 – duration: 1 hour (most of the analysis is done in the workshop)
When ? : Upstream of the project, during the kick off
Person to invite: All stakeholders as well as users if possible
Tools : Post-its, flipchart sheets, marker
Documents : Nothing
Good practices
Type 1 - Tell a story
Certainly the question is posted on the wall, but you must transport the people present. Really transport them to the future by telling them the whole story.
Type 2 - To see further !
Another interest of Remember the future, it can be used in multiple situations. Recently, I used it to frame the expectations of my clients on a potential coaching mission.
Description of the workshop
Prepare in advance
Very little to prepare apart from the material and the question you want to ask your participants. Book a bright room with enough vertical surface and floor space to circulate your participants.
Animation
Start by welcoming your participants by putting them in the mood: Delorean, red vest and mad scientist. Passing the door they traveled in the future. The workshop takes place in two parts:
The first: Once you have transported your participants to the future (eg “We are in September 2012, you have been using this new product for 6 months now; you are happy with it and it shows.”), it is time to ask them the question (ex “This morning you meet your boss who asks you what you like so much about this new product, and what it has brought you over the past three months”)
To answer this question, each participant writes on post it notes each reason for the success of this product of the future. After 15 minutes, each participant is asked to present their ideas in front of the college of participants and then stick them on a wall.
Once all the participants have presented their success factors, it is time to group them. Collectively, the facilitator and the participants build pools/themes by sticking the post-its on the sheets of flipchart. (Tip: once the theme has been identified, note it at the top of the sheet).
And after ?
The themes you have created will give you the areas to address in your products. Don't hesitate to classify them by importance (number of post-its) to prioritize them!
Examples:
Simon L., UX Manager & Head of the UX Strategy offer
