Need a tool? Look in the toolkit? But which toolkit and which tool? I’m often scrambling around looking for exactly the right tool for the piece of work that I’m engaged in. I’ve got a very extensive toolkit myself garnered over the years. At some point I’m going to categorise and order them so I don’t have such difficulty locating them when I’m looking. I know I have them somewhere. I’d like a virtual pegboard with the painted-on outline of the tool, so I can easily spot which ones are missing from their peg.
I also have a number of off-the-shelf toolkits: do-it-yourself starter kits as it were. Here are ten of them with brief notes. Each one is free and downloadable. I’m not specifically recommending one over the other. Like any off-the -shelf pack they all have some useful bits and some that you may not use but come as part of the kit. (See also my blog ‘Skateboards and Speedbumps’)
1 Virtual crash course in design thinking. This is a Stanford D-school, 90 minute online version with video, handouts, and facilitation tips. It goes step by step through the process of facilitating a design challenge. I first used it with a group of 30 to redesign our organisational room booking system. People loved the interactivity and the fact that they were able to collectively redesign the system from a user perspective in ways that we can take forward.
2 Brains, Behaviour, and Design toolkit Someone told me about this toolkit around 5 years ago and I’ve used elements of it in many workshops. It’s billed as ‘five tools to help designers apply findings from the field of behavioral economics to their practice in order to provide a head start on framing research as well as developing new strategies for solving user problems.’ The tool I use most frequently – and have used it this week – is the one on Losses and Gains. It’s really helpful in situations where people’s only focus is on their loss of something in a situation – for example, their own desk if we’re moving to hot-desking. Having a discussion on what they might gain gives another perspective.
3 The Iriss toolkit has been designed to support people to consider community and societal issues particularly in health and social care. But don’t be put off if you’re not in that sector. It’s got a wide range of tools that are easily adaptable to other contexts. The D-Cards (Difficulties, decisions, deliberations) tool comprises nine ‘think’ cards for planning and preparing for difficult discussions, and 13 ‘activity’ cards which present methods that can be done in a group. ‘The cards explain what the process is, it’s purpose, how to engage in this process and what we thought did and did not work when engaging in this process.’
4 IDEO Human Centered Design Toolkit You can download a free pdf of the design kit by signing up. I downloaded mine several years ago (mine is second edition) and haven’t checked if the one currently available for download is the same as that or not. However, mine is in three chunky sections: hear, deliver, create, each with instructions, methods and case studies. I’ve found the the P.O.I.N.T. technique useful. In this you translate problems and needs identified in storytelling (one of the methods) into insights (also a method) and Themes. P = Problems, O = Obstacles, I = Insights, N = Needs,T = Themes
5 NHS Developing Together OD Toolkit – in this toolkit OD means organisational development. It’s extensive, well-written and practical, without neglecting the theory. It takes as a start-point that OD is “an interdisciplinary and primarily behavioural science approach that draws from fields such as organisation behaviour, management, business, psychology, sociology, anthropology, economics, education, counselling and public administration”. This makes it a complement to the organisation design approach. It’s well worth browsing though and I like all the additional references that it lists.
6 Frog Design Collective Action Toolkit. This is lovely toolkit – well designed and presented. It ‘uses an action map with activities arranged into six areas. All you need is motivation and enthusiasm to get started.’ Each of the six action areas has a number of immediately practical tools. One group I worked with had great fun with the ‘Knowledge Hunt’ tool which asked them to ‘Find out what your team already knows about your group’s challenge— and what else you’d like to learn.’ It led to lively discussion, a lot of learning and several avenues to explore further.
7 DPSA Guide and Toolkit on Organization Design. This is one from the Government of South Africa and is good for people looking for an organisation design phased methodology focused on structures. It’s very detailed with 290 pages each phase described by process, tools and execution. It’s got 76 excellent tools categorised by design phase, plus some helpful ‘Decision Points’ e.g. Decision point 1 ‘Is it a structural problem?’.
8 State Government Victoria, Organisational Design: an ideas source book. This is another government’s guide to Org Design. It takes a different tack from South Africa’s in that it is not as prescriptive and instructional, rather, saying ‘the publication has been developed to provide information, insights and advice that may be useful for organisational leaders working in any public organisation and thinking about adopting or abandoning any type of design’. It’s an ‘ideas sourcebook’. Striking (and welcome) is the statement ‘The fact is that there is an increasing number of organisational forms that cannot be simply illustrated by an organisational chart.’
9 Mind Lab Methods Cards This is a set of cards presenting Mind Lab’s ‘most used methods for policy and iterative design processes’. The one on cultural probes is useful for gaining insight into ‘aspects of peoples’ daily lives, attitudes and values that do not emerge from traditional interviews’. This is helpful in organisation design work when we are trying to work out the ‘say-do’ disconnects that pepper organisational life and that are part of the current design whether acknowledged or not.
10 Design Thinking Bootleg this, like the Virtual Crash Course mentioned above, is also from the Stanford D-school. It is ‘more of a cook book than a text book, and more of a constant work-in-progress than a polished and permanent piece.’ That said it is a good resource for some tools not commonly used, but that I’ve found are helpful, in organisation design work, like ‘Powers of Ten’ and ‘Why, How Laddering’.
11 Others I use which are also free and downloadable: HRBP Organization Design Toolkit , Good work Toolkit, Kelly Sears Organization Design Toolkit
What toolkits are in your toolkit? Let me know.
Image: Estate sale tools
Naomi Stanford 
Since writing the above I have found ‘The Nesta DIY Toolkit [that] has been especially designed for development practitioners to invent, adopt or adapt ideas that can deliver better results.’ And the ‘Systems Thinking Toolkit‘ from FSG.