Employees of XDSOFT’s Novosibirsk office participated in a team session

These events have become a tradition for a reason: XDSOFT creates user-centered products, so it’s essential for every employee to develop their skills in applying design thinking tools. This method is a unique approach to problem-solving that prioritizes user interests.

Participants were divided into teams and tasked with creating their own IT projects, progressing through several key stages:

• Empathy
• Focus
• Idea generation
• Idea selection
• Prototyping
• Testing

During the empathy stage, XDSOFT employees learned how to conduct surveys, identify stakeholders, and deeply explore the user experience.

The collected information was analyzed, allowing the teams to identify problems and suggest initial solutions. However, the most important goal, set by team coach Irina Alyrenkova and XDSOFT's art director Leta Dobrovolskaya, was to teach employees how to generate ideas from the user’s perspective and to broaden their thinking.

To facilitate this, a specific game mechanic was used: players moved their pieces across a task board, which was designed around idea generation. The Venn diagram helped teams select the most valuable ideas for both people and business.

One of the most exciting parts of the team session was prototyping and testing. Participants brought their best ideas to life by creating prototypes for user demonstration. All possible materials were used: paper, PowerPoint presentations, and even LEGO bricks.

At the end, teams presented their prototypes and were able to test their ideas in real-world scenarios.

Thanks to the team session, XDSOFT employees learned how to conduct interviews with end-users, think creatively, break free from stereotypes, develop truly valuable ideas, collaborate with their team to find the strongest and most sustainable solutions, and create quick prototypes to test their ideas in real time.