Design Thinking
Centered Leadership
Most leaders hope that innovation and creativity will flourish in their
teams and across their organization. However, without a strategy for this to
happen it is likely to be an aspiration rather than a reality. One strategy
that helps to drive greater innovation and creativity, that has gained
significant appeal in recent years, is “Design Thinking”. Steve Jobs at Apple
is arguably the practical pioneer of this process in the business world but
other major companies have adopted it too including Coca-Cola, Herman-Miller,
IBM, Ideo, Nike and Proctor & Gambol. In addition it has been written about
extensively and rendered to be highly accessible to all organizations by
several academic staff at Stanford University. In this article we will
therefore explore what design thinking means and how it can be adopted as an
approach that leaders can draw upon.
What is Design Thinking?
As the diagram below illustrates graphically, Design Thinking is a
methodology used to solve complex problems, and find desirable solutions for
end-users or clients. A design mindset is solution focused and action oriented
towards creating a better or improved future, often going beyond the minimal or
immediate need.
Effective Design Thinking uses a balance of rational and creative
structured thought processes to explore possibilities of what a future state
could be—and to create desired outcomes that benefit the end user (or the
ultimate customer). It is consequently not only a process of the imagination
but must also be viable and possible to execute within the bounds of current
knowledge and methods. In this way Design Thinking offers a framework for
understanding and pursuing innovation in ways that add real value to customers.
Creativity is central to the design process, especially in discovering the
unmet needs of customers in a given situation, but also involves testing and
refining possible solutions to ensure that they are attractive and actually
work.
The diagram above illustrates a commonly used Design Thinking framework,
suggesting that the process is best applied in four distinct phases: Discover,
Define, Develop, and Deliver. Let’s look at each of these phases in a little
more detail:
The Discover Phase (creative bias)
Design Thinking begins with developing a deep understanding of
customers’ or users’ stated and unmet or unarticulated needs. This is often
easier for entrepreneurs who may have individually experienced a common user
frustration that they believe they can address, but even in larger companies,
individuals can immerse themselves in the daily lives of people they are trying
to serve and then pay close attention to people and what they say. Methods for thinking
like a designer include close observation, interviewing, creating user
personas, empathy mapping, storyboarding etc., but don’t forget there is no
substitute for talking with people and really listening.
The Define Phase (rational bias)
During the Define phase, leaders should put together the information
they have created and gathered during the Discover phase and ensure that “the
problem we are solving” is clearly defined. This means analyzing all of the
varied observations and synthesizing them in a priority of interest order to
define the core issues that the leader and the team have identified up to this
point. The Define phase is also where leaders establish possible product or
service features, functions, and any other elements that will allow end users
to potentially solve the problems they are experiencing-this is the rational
prelude to the create next phase of creative development.
The Develop Phase (creative bias)
During the third phase of the Design Thinking process, as many tangible
ideas as possible are generated-often called brainstorming ideas or “ideating”.
Team members are encouraged to ‘think outside the box’ to identify new
solutions to the problem statement created at the define stage. Although this
phase naturally encourages broad and creative ideas, it also should challenge
individuals to put themselves in the shoes of the end user and what would
enthuse them about a possible solution. In general, this would mean considering
not only what would minimally meet an expectation or make things incrementally
better but go much further or provide multiple additional benefits, even if
they were not demanded in the first place.
The Deliver Phase (rational bias)
In the Deliver phase the leader encourages the team to come up with one
or more inexpensive, scaled down or limited versions of the product/service.
Prototypes may be shared and tested within the team itself, in other
departments, or introduced to a small group of people outside the team.
One-by-one, each prototype (or version of it) is accepted or rejected on the
basis of the users’ experiences and then improved upon as per the feedback
gained. In short, in this phase the ideas generated are validated before coming
up with the final product or service, which are then finally delivered.
Summary
Design thinking is a systematic process for leading product or service
creation or change and to help drive the innovation processes in small or large
organizations. Design Thinking can be applied not only to products and services
but also to systems, procedures, protocols, and customer/user experiences. If
leaders rigorously educate team members about what needs to be done in
each of the four phases of the process described above, they will not only have
a systematic way to create more innovation but sustain it as well.
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