I know a lot of have used, seen or employed design tools. These include things like writing words on post-its and grouping them to see what relationships and overarching themes emerge. This is called an affinity map and often happens after a brainstorm, but can be employed with any large set of information that seems overwhelming. This and many more can be found online at ServiceDesignTools.Org. So if you’re not ready to front the money for some Ideo Methods Cards or the This Is Service Design Thinking book, this should help you get by.
We gave a couple of these a shot in one of our consulting meetings, but I don’t think we really harnessed their usefulness. What would be awesome is if the frameworks were built into the offering ex. lean startup canvas (http://leancanvas.com/). Any designer / developer out there?