Business Origami, also called desktop system mapping, is a facilitation technique developed by Hitachi Design Center that uses small paper cutouts representing people, places, devices, and documents to model a service system on a flat tabletop. Participants arrange and rearrange the cutouts to represent different service configurations, communication flows, and actor relationships. Because the model is three-dimensional, physical, and easily rearranged, it enables collaborative system design in a way that diagram-drawing tools rarely achieve.
Business Origami
Modelling service systems with paper pieces to enable hands-on collaborative design
A
Designers Academy
25 November 2025 · 4 min read
DesignMethods
In brief
Business Origami is a hands-on facilitation technique developed by Hitachi Design Center that uses paper cutouts to model and redesign complex service systems collaboratively on a tabletop.
