Mentoring the Next Generation
Advancing Stakeholder Workshop Methods
Context
As a 2019 graduate of Texas Tech University’s Human Factors Psychology program, I was invited in Spring 2021 to sponsor a project for the graduate-level Human Factors Methodology course. The objective was for students to research a UX methodology that alumni were interested in learning more about but had not yet had the time to explore in depth.
As mentioned in the Stakeholder Interviews Project, I had recently joined IBM’s Automation team, where I was on a team that conducted research on a newly acquired RPA tool. One of the first things I did when I joined the team was conduct stakeholder interviews. Following the stakeholder interviews, I conducted a Stakeholder Workshop in order to identify research questions that key RPA stakeholders had about the project.
Building on the success of this workshop, I wanted to explore additional design thinking activities that could benefit newly formed teams. The students’ objective was to identify alternative methods that could be incorporated into stakeholder workshops to help drive alignment early in a project.
Throughout the Spring semester, I provided feedback on the team’s final paper and presentation and met with them regularly during bi-weekly scrum calls.
Timeframe: Spring Semester
Results
As a result of the student’s research, my students identified 3 methods that could be used in stakeholder workshops that would benefit new teams:
Empathy Maps
Maps the potential experiences of the user.
Why good for new teams? Used for aligning team collaboration around a shared understanding of the user and what may drive user behavior in relation to a certain product. Helps with the discussion of how the project may affect users.
Hopes and Fears
Assesses the hopes and fears that team members might have when starting a new project.
Why good for new teams? Makes aware the overall attitudes towards a project. The hopes bring inspiration while the fears may bring about discussion and debates to help the team be on the same page.
Feedback Grids
Uses stakeholder feedback to understand ways to improve the prototype or make new systems.
Why good for new teams? Easy to set up, and can be done either while the testing is going on, or after the fact. Useful for seeing how different stakeholders think about an idea and how teams might improve designs.
Methodological Changes
The students also supplemented their findings with insights several changes that would improve the three methods, with suggestions to aid the methods:
Empathy Map
The students noted that the Empathy Map has recently been updated by its original creators and is now referred to as the Empathy Map Canvas. In this updated version, goals are integrated directly into the sections describing who designers are meant to empathize with and what users do—rather than being separated into an independent category as in earlier versions.
They also highlighted the importance of anonymity when facilitating either version of the empathy map. Allowing participants to contribute indirectly—for example, by having the facilitator collect and record notes—can encourage more candid input from individuals who might otherwise hesitate due to concerns about being evaluated by supervisors or peers.
Hopes and Fears
By leveraging online tools, facilitators can preserve participant anonymity, allowing team members to express their hopes and fears without concern for judgment. Digital platforms that generate word clouds—where participants submit single words or short phrases—can help visualize common themes by enlarging terms that appear more frequently.
Feedback Grids
Practitioners should consider the backgrounds and communication styles of the groups providing feedback, as different teams may approach critique in varying ways. Adjusting the level of anonymity and the method for collecting responses can influence group dynamics and the quality of insights gathered.
For example, facilitators may ask participants to take notes individually during a testing session and share their feedback collectively at the end—or submit their input anonymously. Providing an anonymous channel often leads to more candid responses, reducing fear of evaluation and resulting in more honest, actionable feedback.
Impact
This project allowed me to contribute to the next generation of Human Factors practitioners while simultaneously strengthening my own approach to stakeholder alignment. Through their exploration of design thinking methods, the students generated three workshop techniques—with thoughtful methodological improvements—that expanded my toolkit as a researcher working with a newly formed automation team at IBM.
Their work highlighted the importance of anonymity, updated frameworks, and tailored facilitation methods, which I later incorporated into my real-world workshops to:
Build trust within cross-functional teams navigating new processes,
Capture a more representative set of stakeholder perspectives, and
Create clearer, more actionable research questions at the start of the project.
This collaboration not only enriched the students’ applied learning but also made a measurable impact on how I designed and facilitated stakeholder workshops moving forward.
