What are the most common challenges when applying Design Thinking in PM?

Identify Key Stakeholders: Begin by identifying the key stakeholders in your project. This may include executives, team members, customers, and investors. Engage in Early Collaboration: Involve stakeholders from the outset. Encourage them to participate in ideation sessions and user research to foster a sense of ownership in the process. Demonstrate Quick Wins: Demonstrating tangible results early on can build trust and enthusiasm among stakeholders. Communicate Continuously:Provide regular updates on progress, share insights from user research, and seek input and feedback. Show Impact: Use metrics and user feedback to showcase how it addressed the initial problem effectively.

Drawing from my adventures in big data and digital platforms, getting stakeholders on board with Design Thinking can be like convincing a dog to take a bath—it's tricky but not impossible. With data as my trusty sidekick, I've found that numbers speak louder than words. By giving stakeholders a front-row seat in the Design Thinking show, they become less of skeptical onlookers and more of enthusiastic participants. And hey, if we can align Design Thinking with business goals and keep the feedback loop as constant as our love for coffee, we're not just talking buy-in; we're talking a standing ovation!

Generally, I adopt following steps 1. Understand Your Stakeholders: - Identify relevant Stakeholders. - Understand their needs, goals, and concerns. - Communicate the Value of Design Thinking. 2. Share user research findings and insights with stakeholders. - Use storytelling techniques to convey user stories and experiences effectively. - Address Concerns and Objections: 3. Be prepared to address any concerns or objections raised by stakeholders. - Show how design thinking can mitigate risks and improve outcomes. - Present a Shared Vision. - Listen actively to their feedback and provide clear, data-driven responses. 4. Work with stakeholders to create a shared vision for the design project by regular Updates and Progress Reports.

Identifying and defining the right problem is the key to any design thinking process. Many times when user research is conducted or customer interviews are done, the problem statement doesn't come out in a crisp fashion or often it's solution-biased For example: A survey has given a response as this: "Competition released new features with generative AI, we also need the same features" Now this statement shrouds the actual pain the customer is facing, and as a PM leader, you need to use your people connection to get to the exact problem. In most cases, I get into long discussions with customer and often use Balsamique or Figma to create quick prototypes to get a quick buy-in of the problem to solve

Often paying customers would want features with specific designs or fonts or maybe the placement of a new button/banner. Upon discussions, you would realise that implementing such a feature wouldn't be feasible as per design standards or might require re-architecture, or adding it might cause inconvenience to other customers. In cases such as these PMs are required to push back the customer in a diplomatic way and suggest other alternative designs to solve the pain point (with relevant data and conviction). It might sound easy, but it takes real negotiation skills to appease both parties and balance creativity along with feasibility.

I agree with the statement "Design thinking is not a one-time event, but a continuous process". I can also add Design Thinking requires a cultural mindset change for any product team, as its a team effort. An example of this is: We mandate DQA(design QA/Retro) during sprint demo, this helps everyone in the scrum and the PM team, to see the feature implementation and comment on the design. This DQA is often followed by A/B testing and a UX survey to get additional inputs. Post which, the inputs are discussed and implemented. This open culture took almost 6-8 months to develop and soon it became part of team ( irrespective of Scrum/Kanban) method

Align design thinking with core business goals to ensure strategic impact. Focus on iterative learning—failure is just data for refinement. Prioritize cross-functional collaboration; it's key to turning ideas into reality. Keep the process simple, focused, and always driven by user needs.

Challenge 6: Knowing when to apply Design Thinking Design Thinking (DT) could come off as "fluff" at best and a waste of time at worse. One reason is the time DT is leveraged and how that matches the stage of the product. What I've seen work best is when DT is applied at the discovery phases of product development. This is when the problem space and core customer needs are not fully clear and hence you aren't sure of the top problem to solve. With DT, you approach the problem space divergently with the goal of finding a problem worth solving. Another stage to apply DT would be when you are deciding on the best solution from a set you've identified. This is more on the delivery phase. Timing is critical to achieve the maximum impact of DT.