Design thinking can still fix the world.

I recently read an interesting article entitled, “Design thinking was supposed to fix the world. Where did it go wrong?” and it made me, erm, think.?

Design thinking was popularized as a method for solving complex—or wicked—problems in the 90s. I apply its processes in my own business and work, and even in my personal life.

In her article, Rebecca Ackermann , points out that design thinking is an iterative, cyclical model that promises a fast-moving, cooperative, and egalitarian way of getting things done, and is rooted in empathy to connect with a user’s pain points. She goes on to describe the shortcomings of the design thinking process and cites various case studies from the last couple decades highlighting big players like IDEO , Smart Design , and frog .

Her underlying note states that while design thinking has the power to create highly innovative solutions to wicked problems it falls flat when it comes to implementation because they do not account for long-term socioeconomic, financial, environmental, political, cultural, and traditional consequences.

A particular example is the Diva Centres project developed by IDEO in Lusaka, Zambia in 2016 designed to offer teens ‘access to contraception and reproductive health in a low-pressure environment’. The team would go on to complete three sites claiming the project a success and even take home an award. However, the project failed to properly consider challenges concerning public health funding, financial limitations, and so on, and apparently the project never reached completion.

It is essential to combine design thinking with strategic thinking to ensure that design solutions are sustainable and provide long-term value.

Some design firms that successfully focus on social and systems design with co-creative, human-centered, culturally-sensitive practices are Social Design Collaborative , MASS Design Group , and Agenda28 .

What we need to always be mindful of is consequences, and forgoing otherworldly, idealistic, innovative ideas and reminding ourselves that there is a realism we can’t avoid. Even the siloed, holier-than-thou mentality adopted by the big players is being amended—which in itself is a design thinking process.

Asking questions like, how much is this solution going to cost the users? Who is this going to impact long term? How will it grow over time? Are we causing more harm than good? Without these questions, the design thinking cycle will, indeed, stop at implementation.

I also believe we can continue using the term design thinking as long as it’s applied correctly. In his book, The Design of Business, Roger Martin defined it well, stating when you have safe analytical thinking basing decisions on past data, and intuitive thinking basing decisions on gut, and risky, feelings (two conflicting schools of thought), then design thinking is the convergence of both in that one “exploits the past to explore the future.”

When applied in this manner, you're overlapping the cyclical, iterative process of design thinking with long-term strategy, and a human-centered approach emerges.

It is the nature of design thinking to continuously iterate. The notion of failing often and failing fast is the root of this process. Design thinking institutions cannot simply stop once “the project is over”. The project must not be siloed, and it must utilize co-creation to include, employ, and design for the end users, and all those it impacts.

I believe the design industry is already employing these methodologies. We must remember to work co-creatively and that design thinking and strategy require each other for holistic change to take place.