Design Thinking
It
is not surprising that human thinking can be directed into numerous ways for
different mind outcomes. Therefore, design thinking can easily be distinguished
from scientific thinking, though there is a strong link between the two. While scientific thinking results in a
discovery of a fundamental knowledge, design thinking conceives the reality of
experience. Considering this, design thinking draws from scientific thinking to
achieve its outcomes (Brown, 2014). For instance, design thinking is highly
dependent on reliability in pursuit of preferred desirable, useful, and
possible future.
The
design thinking concept, while attracting attention, is controversial. Experts
disagree on its inclusiveness and how it
works. However, there is an increasing evidence of importance and effectiveness
of the subject (Bjogvinsson et al., 2012). Considerably, most learning institutions offer specific courses on
the subject to help nurture future business leaders for innovation and
creativity. The literature for such courses entails the operations of
successful designers and their relationships with the business clients and other
business stakeholders. Resultantly, a
recognition of its importance is growing especially in business, arts, and
design as observed among the policy professionals for increased understanding.
Hebert
Simons (a Nobel laureate) observed that design thinking is about the alteration
of an existing situation as preferred by the business entity. He regarded
designing as the transformation of the
process to what it ought to be from what it is (Razzouk, 2013). In fact, it is
a purposeful and conscious channeling of
a business leader’s mental resources towards transformative and cultural
production process for value addition. Essentially, design thinking not only
weighs the perceived situational differences but also, it offers guidance on
the transformation of wants, needs, and desires into plans, policies, designs,
and other intentional artifacts. Additionally,
design thinking is critical in the evaluation process of artifacts as experienced or assimilated in
culture.
Design Thinking as a Strategic Tool in
Business Leadership
The
modern business environment is ever-changing. It demands business leaders possess a distinct set of skills from those prior to internet boom and
advancement of technology. Currently, the stakeholders are empowered by the enormous accessibility of information that has
dramatically altered the business rules. Therefore, it is imperative for
business leaders to be agile and flexible for easier adaption to the new
business environment. Design thinking comes into full view as an inevitable
response to the organizational needs (Meinel and Leifer, 2015). Most scholars
argue that design thinking is a state of mind that can be acquired by any
business leader for prosperity, innovation, and organizational development. It
is an indispensable tool for business
leaders because it eases the path towards innovation and creativity. Simply
put, design thinking hits the spot where technology, business feasibility and
the demands of business clients overlap.
THE REVOLUTION OF DESIGN
The
existing business landscape demands business brands and organizational leaders
to be customer- centric. Design thinking drives this revolution for a mutually
beneficial outcome in the relations between the stakeholders and the business
entity. If the primary focus of a business brand is the needs of the audience,
the organizational leadership can navigate optimally through such a new
business environment characterized by uncertainty and flux state. A takeover of
revolution implies that customer capitalism will replace business capitalism to
ensure the satisfaction of clients and quality production (Muller and Thoring,
2012). In the process, push strategies will transform to pull strategies, where
the firm will incorporate customer input during the design process to meet the
market needs. Moreover, brands ought not
to be fearful in empowering the stakeholders and business clients by letting
them take over the decision-making process.
DART (dialogue, access, reflexivity, and transparency is an encapsulating model
for this approach by providing the necessary platform for conversation with the
product consumers on ways to extend or modify the content. In this way, the
business leaders draw on their contributions for continuity and improvement.
Eventually, product authenticity and openness during the design process amount
to design revolution.
THE PROCESS OF DESIGN
THINKING
Fig 1: The Process of
Design Thinking neomobile-blog.com
Once
the leadership demonstrates full
commitment to the design revolution, the organization can comfortably handle
design thinking. There are four widely accepted rules of design thinking. The
first one is a human rule which
predominantly focuses on the social dimension of the aspect, given that it centers human beings on the entire design
process. Secondly, ambiguity rule eliminates the need for preconceived ideas,
the mechanisms of idea-stifling, or stereotypes. Rather, this rule welcomes
wild ideas by creating an innovative environment through an atmosphere that
lacks predefined boundaries. Thirdly, the re-design rule builds on the
enhancement and improvement of the existing designs to minimize the research
and design costs. Lastly, the tangibility rule stems from the creation of
prototypes to streamline communication between the distinct specialized teams
of product designers (Leavy, 2011).
Numerous
models exist on step-by-step design thinking process, but nearly all of them
share similar iterative and consumer-centric traits. IDEO, for instance, breaks
down the entire design thinking process into five steps. First, the designer
should have a clear understanding of the process through a thorough
consideration of the client’s behavior
and their motivations. Secondly, it is important for the business leader to
observe the development through extensive research and gathering information
from people in the market. In this way, he will interact with his service or
product. Third, visualization brainstorms ideas for the perfection of the design framework. Fourth, designers must refine
and evaluate their ideas by making prototypes during early stages of the
process. The last step of the process entails the implementation of all the
proposed ideas. While the IDEO process has
sequential steps, it fails to emphasize the need to ask the right questions or
reframing of the queries in line with prototypes and tests conducted. Still, it
is interesting to observe feedback as part of the product improvement. Notably,
iterative prototyping fine-tunes the
proposed ideas to identify and arrest the matters arising while identifying the
existing business opportunities to unite client’s feedback and designer’s
creativity.
FRAMING DESIGN QUESTION
When
engaging in design thinking, the designer should be concerned about framing the
right query. However, this phase should not consume a sizeable amount of time.
Of keen to note is that the question’s frame wields a greater influence in the
process’ direction. Therefore, asking the right questions increases the changes
of greater ideas to effectively solve the design issue (Scheer et al., 2012).
The frame of the question drives the nature of answers and product outcome.
Ironically, the design thinking can backfire if the organizational leadership
establishes numerous boundaries in the initial phase to immediately narrow down
on the ultimate choice.
USER-CENTRIC
An
organization cannot maintain competitiveness market leadership unless it shifts
to user-centric status from being brand-centric. In the modern era interactivity
and peer-to-peer communications are fundamental especially in the business
world. Thus, customer insights need to drive design thinking and ideas. Hence,
firsthand experience, extensive market research, and ethnography are critical
avenues of design exploration. Often, consumers stumble on multiple touch
points and milestones that the organization’s brand can wield a resounding
impact. It is important, therefore, for the business leaders to stroll in the
stakeholders’ shoes to solve the raised questions. A feat such as this is
within reach if the designer is open minded and can express willingness to
abandon preconceived ideas that hamper innovation efforts. Necessarily, the
organization should clearly understand the likes, dislikes, motivations, and
interests of the customers. The richer the information base an organization
possesses, the closer the firm is to understand the customer insight and to
minimize the level of competition in the market. Embracing all the market needs
and different kinds of information is fundamental for the determination of the source of consumer insight. An
all-rounded view of the market demands allows the corporation to formulate the
persona that incorporates all the traits of the consumer.
THE KNOWLEDGE FUNNEL AND
ADDUCTIVE REASONING
The
challenge of design thinking in an organization follows the path of
innovativeness rather than traditional pathways to success. It has to be
accompanied by abductive reasoning to sustain organizational leadership in an
ever-changing business environment. In retrospect, abductive reasoning refers
to a logical process of deriving sense out of a given phenomenon that does not
adhere to an existent deduction or has not occurred for a long time enough for
induction. Essentially, this form of business reasoning focuses on the
discovery of the most likely solution to the design problem (Viswananthan and
Linsey, 2015). Interestingly, the knowledge funnel model clearly indicates how
to integrate abductive reasoning to the real-world design situations.
There are three stages in this process. The
first one is the mystery phase, where the
designer must ask a specified question and conduct an extensive exploratory
research to detect insights. Secondly, the heuristic phase is attained when the
researcher has reasonably explained the phenomenon to fully account for a
mystery. The last phase is Algorithm. At this stage, the business leader
intends to standardize the heuristic outcome. Then, he converts the outcome
into a formula usable in the provision of solutions for similar issues. Often,
most organizations that reach the second phase are susceptible to stagnation because
of overconfidence. If this is the case, they allow the rivaling firms to gain a foothold in the market through
implementation of groundbreaking ideas (Dorst, 2011). Considerably, it is
important for the leading firms to recognize the end point and to revert to the
mystery stage for reinvention and to sustain their competitive edge.
COLLABORATIVE CULTURE
For
design thinking to be successful in the long-run, the firm must adopt an
inter-disciplinary action. The strategy will not only enable the organization
to profit from the diversity of the expertise
but also, it will unconsciously allow the company to gradually and successfully
drift away from narrow-mindedness. Collaborating with different professionals
(such as psychologists and engineers) during the design process sets an ideal
state of mind to be openly receptive to new and constructive ideas (Leavy,
2011). As reasoning extends to deeper levels, the chance to acquire additional
insightful ideas is enhanced. By the same token, useful traits such as
transparency and authenticity must be embraced. Lastly, the leading
organizations should regard collaboration as a necessary undertaking,
especially in the modern dynamic business world where user-generated content is
increasingly becoming an integral part of the design process.
Defining
the Concept of Design Thinking
The
design thinking methodology refers to a repetitive and proven protocol for
solving problems in any profession or business setting to attain desired but extraordinary outcome. A design is largely
dependent on the constraints because ideas must be refined selections ought to
be executed with precision. Thus, the concept of design thinking describes a
continuous reinvention of a process by employing creative and unique techniques
that yield desired and guaranteed outcomes (Meinel and Leifer, 2015). For many
organizations that employ design thinking, the results often exceed the initially intended expectations. It is because
of this reasons that business entities that focus on survival and
competitiveness find the concept dynamic and attractive.
In
summary, understanding design thinking allows the business leaders to realize
the need for step-by-step design process rather than focusing entirely on the
end result. Design thinking goes beyond sociological and psychological
considerations. In the modern times, attention span drastically diminishes as
people spend a significant amount of time in social platforms
(Johansson-Skoldberg et al., 2013). Ultimately, the behavior of people is altered according to the latest trends and
dynamics in the environment. Therefore, design, as a business discipline must
be driven by design thinking to keep up the pace of change. Most importantly,
the organization should focus on user-centric approaches to address the needs
in the society and to maintain competitiveness.
Fig
2: Corporate innovation and Dynamics steveblank.com
Bibliography
Bjögvinsson, E., Ehn, P. and Hillgren, P.A.,
2012. Design Things and Design Thinking: Contemporary Participatory Design
Challenges. Design Issues,28(3),
pp.101-116.
Brown, T., 2014. Design Thinking. Harvard Business Review, 86(6), p.84.
Dorst, K., 2011. The Core of ‘Design Thinking’
and its Application. Design
Studies, 32(6),
pp.521-532.
Johansson‐Sköldberg, U., Woodilla, J. and Çetinkaya, M., 2013. Design Thinking:
Past, Present, and Possible Futures. Creativity and Innovation
Management, 22(2),
pp.121-146.
Leavy, B., 2011. Collaborative Innovation as
the New Imperative-Design Thinking, Value Co-Creation and the Power of “Pull”. Strategy & Leadership,40(2),
pp.25-34.
Meinel, C. and Leifer, L. eds., 2015. Design Thinking Research.
London: Springer.
Müller, R.M. and Thoring, K., 2012. Design Thinking Vs. Lean Start-up: A Comparison
of Two User-Driven Innovation Strategies. Leading
Through Design, 151.
Razzouk, R. and Shute, V., 2013. What is Design
Thinking and Why is it Important?. Review
of Educational Research, pp.29.
Scheer, A., Noweski,
C. and Meinel, C., 2012. Transforming Constructivist Learning into Action:
Design Thinking in Education. Design
and Technology Education: an International Journal, 17(3).
Viswanathan, V.K. and Linsey, J.S., 2015.
Physical Models and Design Thinking: A Study of Functionality, Novelty, and Variety of Ideas. Journal of Mechanical Design, 134(9), pp.14.
No comments:
Post a Comment