Overview

This guide will help you facilitate a Provocation Exercise, a workshop designed to uncover deeply-held design beliefs by challenging assumptions and stimulating productive debate.

Duration: 2-3 hours

Participants: Cross-functional team (designers, developers, product managers, leadership)

Purpose: To uncover authentic design beliefs through structured debate around provocative statements

Pre-Workshop Preparation

1. Select provocative statements

   • Review the provided statement list (see appendix)

   • Choose 8-10 statements most relevant to your team's context

   • Select statements likely to generate differing opinions

   • Include a mix of topics (user experience, design process, aesthetics, ethics)

   • Consider creating custom statements specific to your product or industry

2. Prepare workshop materials

   • Print provocative statements on individual cards or prepare digital slides

   • Create voting cards or prepare digital polling system

   • Prepare response tracking sheets or digital board

   • Set up a physical or virtual space that supports discussion

3. Understand your role

   • As facilitator, remain neutral on all topics

   • Your job is to encourage debate, not to participate in it

   • Be comfortable with productive tension and disagreement

   • Prepare to manage strong personalities without suppressing passion

4. Brief key participants

   • Consider giving a heads-up to 2-3 participants who are good at articulating positions

   • Ask them to help model constructive disagreement in the early discussions

   • Don't tell them which side to take - just to be ready to share perspectives

Workshop Flow

1. Introduction (15 minutes)

• Welcome participants and explain the workshop purpose:

  • "We're using provocative statements to reveal core design beliefs"

  • "There are no right or wrong answers - the goal is to uncover authentic positions"

  • "This is exploration, not decision-making"

• Set ground rules for constructive disagreement:

  • Debate ideas, not people

  • Listen to understand, not to respond

  • Disagreement is valuable and welcome

  • Build upon others' ideas

  • All perspectives are valid

• Explain the flow: voting, discussion, capture of underlying beliefs

• Model the type of debate you're seeking with a simple example

2. Warming Up: Personal Provocations (20 minutes)

• Ask participants to take 3 minutes to write down their own provocative design statement

• Prompt: "What design belief would you defend even if others disagree?"

• Have each person share their statement (limit to 30 seconds each)

• Facilitate brief initial reactions without attempting to resolve disagreements

• Note recurring themes or interesting contrasts

• Use this as a warm-up to get people comfortable with expressing opinions

3. Provocative Statements Exercise (60 minutes)

• Present each pre-prepared provocative statement one at a time (7-10 minutes per statement)

• For each statement:

  1. Read the statement aloud and display it

  2. Ask participants to silently vote: Strongly Agree / Agree / Neutral / Disagree / Strongly Disagree

  3. Reveal the voting results

  4. Ask for volunteers from opposing positions to explain their reasoning (2 minutes each)

  5. Facilitate wider discussion, ensuring multiple perspectives are heard

  6. Document key points, recurring themes, and underlying values

  7. Summarize the range of perspectives before moving to the next statement

• Maintain a brisk pace to cover 6-8 statements

• Ensure quieter participants have opportunities to contribute

• Look for the beliefs beneath the positions

4. Identifying Core Beliefs (30 minutes)

• Display all notes from the discussions

• Ask participants to identify recurring themes and values

• Prompt questions:

  • "What fundamental beliefs about design seem to underlie our discussions?"

  • "What values keep emerging regardless of the specific topic?"

  • "What tensions do we repeatedly encounter?"

• Cluster similar beliefs

• Discuss which beliefs feel most fundamental to the team's approach

• Vote or use dot-voting to prioritize the most significant beliefs

• Aim to identify 5-7 core beliefs

5. Manifesto Statement Development (30 minutes)

• Break into small groups of 3-4 people

• Assign each group 1-2 core beliefs to develop into manifesto statements

• Provide guidance:

  • Make statements declarative and specific

  • Use strong, clear language

  • Avoid jargon or buzzwords

  • Address the "why" behind the belief

• Each group drafts 2-3 potential manifesto statements for each assigned belief

• Groups share statements with the entire team

• Discuss which statements most authentically represent the collective position

6. Synthesis and Next Steps (15 minutes)

• As a group, select the strongest manifesto statements for further development

• Discuss how these statements could guide design decisions

• Share examples of how manifestos can be used in practice

• Agree on format and timeline for finalizing the manifesto

• Assign responsibilities for next steps (refining language, creating examples, designing visual presentation)

• Schedule a follow-up session to review the refined manifesto

Facilitation Techniques

Setting the Tone

• Begin by acknowledging that disagreement can feel uncomfortable

• Share an example of how debate improved a design outcome

• Model openness to different perspectives

• Emphasize that the goal is exploration, not consensus

• Use humor appropriately to diffuse tension

Managing Discussions

• Ensure all perspectives are heard, not just the loudest voices

• Watch for and invite contribution from quieter participants

• Redirect personal critiques to focus on ideas

• Use "I'm noticing..." statements to highlight patterns

• Maintain neutral positioning as facilitator

• Use time boxing to keep discussions focused

• Ask clarifying questions to deepen understanding

When Discussion Gets Heated

• Acknowledge the passion as a sign of investment

• Reframe as "both perspectives care about quality"

• Ask clarifying questions to move from positions to interests

• Take a brief pause if needed

• Remind of shared goals

• Use the "steel man" technique: ask people to articulate the strongest version of the opposing view

Synthesizing Effectively

• Look for recurring themes across different discussions

• Note when the same people consistently align

• Identify when consensus exists despite different reasoning

• Highlight productive tensions that emerge

• Focus on the "why" behind positions, not just the positions themselves

Common Challenges and Responses

Challenge: Discussion dominated by a few voices

Response: "We've heard some great perspectives from A, B, and C. I'd love to hear from others who haven't shared yet. What are your thoughts, D?"

Challenge: Conversation becoming too abstract

Response: "Those ideas are interesting. Let's ground this in a specific example. Can someone share how this would play out in a recent project?"

Challenge: Team rushing to agreement

Response: "I notice we're quickly agreeing. Let's challenge ourselves - what's the strongest counter-argument we can think of?"

Challenge: Team avoiding disagreement

Response: "It seems we might be hesitant to disagree openly. Remember that surfacing different perspectives leads to stronger outcomes."

Challenge: Discussion veering off-topic

Response: "This is an interesting direction, but let's refocus on our original statement. What beliefs about design does this statement challenge?"

Post-Workshop Follow-up

1. Documentation

   • Compile all identified beliefs with supporting arguments

   • Draft initial manifesto statements based on workshop output

   • Share with participants within 48 hours

   • Include next steps and responsibilities

2. Refinement

   • Schedule a smaller working session to refine manifesto statements

   • Test statements against actual design decisions

   • Ensure statements are specific, memorable, and actionable

3. Socialization

   • Create visual artifacts representing the manifesto

   • Plan how to introduce the manifesto to the wider organization

   • Develop examples showing how the manifesto guides decisions

4. Application

   • Integrate manifesto into design reviews

   • Reference manifesto in project kickoffs

   • Use manifesto to onboard new team members

   • Schedule regular review periods to evolve the manifesto

Appendix: Sample Provocative Statements

User Experience

1. "User preferences should always take precedence over business goals."

2. "Making users think is a design failure."

3. "Consistency is more important than innovation."

4. "A good design should be invisible."

5. "Delight is overrated; functionality is what matters."

Design Process

1. "Data should drive all design decisions."

2. "Good design cannot be created by committee."

3. "Designers who can't code are becoming obsolete."

4. "Design systems stifle creativity."

5. "Design without research is just decoration."

Aesthetic & Style

1. "Minimalism has gone too far."

2. "Form should follow function without exception."

3. "Visual trends should be ignored in favor of timeless design."

4. "Ugly but usable is better than beautiful but difficult."

5. "Animation and motion are essential, not optional, in modern interfaces."

Industry & Ethics

1. "Dark patterns are sometimes justified by business needs."

2. "Designers are responsible for the societal impact of their work."

3. "Accessibility is non-negotiable, even at the expense of aesthetic appeal."

4. "Design should challenge users, not just serve them."

5. "Personalization ultimately creates filter bubbles that harm the user experience."

Product Strategy

1. "It's better to do one thing perfectly than many things adequately."

2. "Products should have opinions about how users should work."

3. "Features should be removed more often than they're added."

4. "User feedback often leads to mediocre design."

5. "Design by iteration is superior to getting it right the first time."

Remember

The goal of this workshop is not to find consensus but to uncover the deeply-held beliefs that guide your team's design approach. The most valuable insights often emerge from constructive disagreement. By creating a space for respectful debate, you enable your team to articulate their authentic design philosophy, which can then be formalized into a powerful manifesto.