Using Smartsheet for Design Thinking
Spreadsheet-familiar interface makes adoption easy for teams transitioning from Excel — minimal training needed for basic use. When combined with Design Thinking, this makes Smartsheet a strong candidate for teams who want a structured, repeatable workflow without sacrificing flexibility. Design Thinking works best in Smartsheet when you leverage its core workflow features to implement the framework's key practices directly in the tool your team already lives in.
Design Thinking is a human-centred problem-solving process: Empathise → Define → Ideate → Prototype → Test. It emphasises understanding user needs deeply before jumping to solutions.
How to set up Design Thinking in Smartsheet
Create an Empathy and Research workspace
In Smartsheet, create a project named "User Research". Each card represents one research session. In the card, log: participant context, key observations, direct quotes, and emotional signals. Use labels for: observation type (Pain, Gain, Context), urgency, and user segment.
Define the problem (HMW statements)
Create a "HMW Statements" list in Smartsheet. After every research synthesis session, generate 5–10 HMW statements and add them as cards. Use card reactions or a voting session (sticky notes on a video call) to identify the top 3 to take into ideation.
Run an ideation sprint in the tool
In Smartsheet, create an "Ideation" board or list for each HMW statement. Team members add solution ideas as cards — no filtering or evaluation during this phase. After divergent ideation (aim for 20+ ideas per HMW), add a "Feasibility" and "Impact" field and do a quick dot-vote.
Track prototypes and test cycles
Set up a custom workflow in Smartsheet for the Test track: Concept → Prototype Building → User Testing → Insights → Decision. Each prototype card links to the HMW statement it addresses, the user testing sessions, and the insights captured. Only prototypes that pass testing graduate to the roadmap.
Which Smartsheet features matter for Design Thinking
Smartsheet has 0 of 2 core Design Thinking features natively.