Every participant has something to contribute and should have a voice; listen to others carefully; defer judgement; respect cultural differences.

The Design Thinking approach evolved to avoid what design researchers call "fixation". This happens when we jump on an apparent solution too early, and fail to take into account other possibilities and perspectives. This is often caused by there being an a power or confidence imbalance in the collaboration. Unconscious cognitive bias, including racism and sexism, may cause this, so we need to be especially careful to avoid it. Most importantly, to ensure that we find solutions, and generate knowledge, that works for the benefit of the communities with whom we work, we need to cultivate and sustain the community's own design capabilities. We cannot to that if we over-rule and dominate activities.

2. Practice inclusive & decolonized designing

Designing may involve imposing choices on other people, within the design process or when a design has been implemented; we need to use that power with care so as not to unfairly exclude, exploit or colonize.

Inclusive design, and the study of how designing excludes people, is one of the main divisions of design research. This has resulted in design techniques and guidelines that we can apply. But we need to go further and cultivate a mindset that continually reflects on inclusivity. Another key division of design research, design anthropology, has demonstrated how cultures of and capabilities for designing replicate colonial power structures. Lucy Suchman has described how the control of the technology industry by a small white American elite has massive impacts on the rest of the world, especially in the global South. Keilwe Munyai (Cape Town) has argued that we need to "design with" communities, rather than for them, so that we develop solutions that work sustainably for them, and develop their design capabilities. This is a central goal to our Design Thinking: don't design for people, help them to become designers.

3. Participate enthusiastically & share your experience and skills

Share your experience; add expert opinion to the discussion and build on other's contributions.

Design Thinking needs positive energy! All projects go through phases in which different emotions dominate. There will be phases where people feel lost, confused, even pointless. Other times there might be strong differences of opinion. We have times when ideas are hard to find, and we just go around in circles, lacking inspiration. And other times when we surge ahead, breaking down (or more often avoiding) all the barriers. The energy of your positive participation drives this! Contribute your experiences, even when you don't feel like an expert. We often find that ideas and experiences drawn from totally unrelated fields can suddenly spark insights that lead to the best innovations (what we call "cross pollination"). And use other people - from all kinds of fields, not just experts but anyone, to feed into your design participation (make them feel welcome, valued and don't forget to thank them and keep them updated on progress).

4. Communicate

Share honest and constructive feedback and offer suggestions for improvement.

Many people find this to be the most difficult thing! We are all one big team, even when we are working on our "own" projects or solutions. We know that Design Thinking always benefits from multiple view points, so we all need constructive feedback from others. The best way to manage this is to be clear with other people about what stage your work is at. If you are trying to get inspired, and just riffing to get wild ideas, tell them that and they should give you feedback that fits with that mood. If you are testing out a fully developed idea, prior to putting big money and time into it, you will want them to be more rigorous in their analysis. This is one of the main skills you need to develop! We will look for evidence of this in your reflective essay.

We also need to give a special mention of online communications and interactions. Design Thinking is an extremely social activity. In the past it has mostly been conducted in physical spaces (the IDEO method describes three types of interconnected space). When working together we use visual cues, body language, and many subtle signals, to get into the flow together and navigate the complexities of design challenges and creativity. We are only jus now learning how to do this online. It's still not perfect. An extra level of patience and understanding is needed. As it says above, be enthusiastic and participate. When presenting, you really don't want to be speaking for long periods without feedback. So please give plenty of feedback to others when they speak. Show you camera, nod, say yes, applaud, show thumbs up and other gestures. We are all finding it challenging, so we need to help each other.

We recommend that you read this article from the Warwick Online Learning Fundamentals: Giving and Receiving Feedback.

5. Be reflective, and share your reflections

Regularly pause to think about what you are doing, what you can learn from events, how you might do things differently, and why you are doing what you do.

As Donald Schön demonstrated in his research on how designers work, reflection is essential. For example, you might be keen to take design decisions that are more inclusive. But in reality what does that goal mean? It's a "virtue" that a lot of people talk about. But do they mean the same thing? Stop, think about what you are doing, articulate how it may or may not lead to inclusivity (or other virtues you are pursuing). Think small and detailed. Think big and broad. Don't just do this on your own, reflect with others. And turn your reflections into actionable intentions to try to improve.