Business Origami
Enables teams to paper-prototype the interaction and value exchange among people, artifacts, and environments.
Business origami is a hands-on method that helps teams visualize and prototype the interactions and value exchanges within a multichannel system using paper models. In a workshop setting, stakeholders create a physical representation of a system with paper cutouts representing people, artifacts, environments, and technologies. This setup allows them to model current and future states of the system, highlighting how different elements interact and exchange value over time. By using a whiteboard as a stage, participants can draw arrows to show interactions and label the value exchanges, making it easy to understand and optimize scenarios like improving a shopping experience. This method enables multidisciplinary collaboration, promotes consensus, and gives everyone an equal voice in the design process, making it a great tool early in the design phase. The key deliverable is the immersive experience of modeling the system, which provides a tangible reference for further discussions and improvements.
Business Origami explores various attributes, including:
- Stakeholders (service providers, businesses, individuals, service users)
- Physical locations
- Relationships between stakeholders
- Services provided
- Resources and activities needed to deliver services
- Transactions such as financial and information exchanges
- Personal experiences of service users or customers
Step 1
Preparation: Define the objectives of the session and gather materials, including paper cutouts to represent people, artifacts, environments, and technologies, as well as a large horizontal whiteboard or table.
Step 2
Scenario Selection: Choose specific scenarios tied to the project goals. These scenarios will guide the participants' thinking and ensure the focus stays on relevant components of the system.
Step 3
Workshop Setup: Arrange the workspace with the whiteboard or table as the stage. Place the paper cutouts and dry-erase markers nearby, ready for use.
Step 4
Role Assignment: Assemble a multidisciplinary team of four to six participants. Assign roles or allow participants to choose the elements they will represent, ensuring diverse perspectives.
Step 5
Modeling the System: Begin by placing the paper cutouts on the stage to represent the current system. Participants should move the tokens around to simulate interactions, drawing arrows with markers to indicate the flow of interactions and labeling them with the value exchanges.
Step 6
Discussion and Documentation: Engage in discussions to explore and optimize the system, making adjustments as needed. Capture the setup with photos or videos for documentation, but focus on the experiential learning and insights gained during the session.
