Visual thinker, facilitator, trainer, author, speaker
Ben helps teams solve problems and generate winning ideas for strategy, products and services, with workshops, training, and sketching. Lots of sketching.
Books
Presto Sketching
A practical workbook for learning simple sketching skills (like people, faces, objects and scenes, storyboarding, journey mapping, and conceptual illustration) for better ways to explore problems, generate ideas, explain concepts, and persuade stakeholders.
Draw in 4
100 4-step sketches of various objects, animals and people — everything from lions to lava lamps — for you to try drawing, to boost your drawing confidence. Whether you’re a seasoned pro or just starting out, this is a fun way to amp up your visual vocabulary.
50 Remote-Friendly Icebreakers
Say goodbye to boring meetings! This book is made for anyone who runs any kind of online meeting, with 50 different fun, insightful and intriguing activities to try with your group. Guaranteed not to contain any cheesy ones. Comes with a companion website.
Working
Ben is Principal Facilitator at Bright Pilots, his visual facilitation consultancy. Bright Pilots helps you work out the fundamentals of your business, product or service: your purpose, your strategy, and your value proposition.
But it’s not all abstract plans and nice-looking charts; it’s about raising your team’s innovation capabilities, for better idea generation, prototyping and business cases. Ben does this through facilitating all kinds of workshops, and bringing conversations to life with sketching and visualisation.
Speaking
Ben has two big passions in life. The first is drawing, in all its forms: for art, for provocation, for explanation, for communication. The second is using the mindset, skillset and toolset of design in teams, to solve problems and envision better futures.
Both are all about unlocking people’s potential to make a better impact for our communities and our planet, amidst the messiness and ambiguity of modern life. This is what drives him as a speaker, for conferences, corporate offsites, and podcasts. Topics:
- Using drawing for business strategy, user experience, persuasion and creativity
- Design Thinking, and using design for better innovation, business performance, and team performance
- Unleashing creativity at work, in useful and non-awkward ways
Recent highlights
- Online Facilitation, with Ben Crothers
The Sketchcast • May 2020 - Podcast: Visual Thinking, with Yuri Malishenko
Apr 2020 - Webinar: Workshop Facilitation for Design Sprints
Terem Technologies • Feb 2020 - Podcast: People, Not Pixels
ProdPod podcast, with Adrienne Tan • Oct 2019 - Conference talk: Bugfixing Your Mental Model
Agile Australia Conference • Jun 2019
Drawing and illustration
See more sketchnotes and other illustrations at Ben’s Instagram accounts for himself, Presto Sketching, and Bright Pilots.
Writing
Ben writes from time to time on the Presto Sketching blog, and on Medium, with a few guest posts here and there. Recent posts:
- An expert answers 15 design sprint questions
Terem technologies • Feb 2020 - 5 cognitive bias examples and how to avoid them in decision-making
Atlassian blog • July 2019 - Sketch Crew students power up their future at AgileAus18 with sketchnoting!
Agile Australia blog • Jul 2018 - What agile retrospectives won’t improve, and what you can do about it
Atlassian blog • Jan 2016 - Fight the dark side of Lean UX with the Experience Canvas
Atlassian blog • Oct 2013
- Investing in design strategy means investing in greater confidence
designstrategy.guide • Apr 2020 - Mapping your user’s day with the User Clock Sketch
Presto Sketching • Jun 2019 - Add more creativity to your drawing with SNAILS
Presto Sketching • Aug 2018 - Visualising to see and solve problems
Frost Collective • 2018 - Want better ideas? Go to Crazytown
Medium • Apr 2015