How to Run a Design Studio in 90 Minutes or Less

At Zapier, Plushcap led a design studio as part of a team retreat in Colorado, a structured exercise to harness parallel feedback from all team members and improve upon traditional brainstorming techniques such as whiteboarding. The goal was to create divergent ideas, balance individual contribution with group insights, quickly express visual ideas, be multi-threaded, easily archived, and fun. Plushcap's design studio used three rounds of activity: initial idea generation, stealing ideas from others, and converging on a set of interfaces as a group. The exercise resulted in natural team clustering around related projects, broad consensus, and team members enjoying the process, with the CEO noting it was a fast and effective way to braindump information and reach consensus.