Design Thinking is not just another problem-solving approach
Coming up with an idea is easy. Coming up with the right one takes work. With design thinking, throwing out what you think you know and starting from scratch opens up all kinds of possibilities.
Design thinking it as pure creative or pure mechanics. It is both: escalating design principles outside product to empower anyone creating ideas to create for customer needs first, solve complex challenges, drive value and, perhaps above all, create and mobilise a flexible culture fit for addressing today’s transforming world.
Design thinking, is sharing ideas, models, intent and a need for buy-in from top-down leadership and bottom-up cultural change.
Design Thinking is not just another problem-solving approach
There are many problem solving strategies available but what makes Design Thinking particularly unique is that it fills the void in problem solving and helps organizations under conditions of uncertainty, where human beings are involved and where the data available is not optimal to predict the future. The reason why design thinking works under these conditions:
- Empathy: Design Thinking enables us to identify unarticulated needs of those we are trying to serve, our customers. The question to ask ourselves is what are the customers trying to accomplish by buying our product or service?
- Invention: All business strategies have three components: possibilities, constraints and uncertainties. In the business world, we begin conversations with real world constraints. But Design Thinking begins with possibilities and encourages us to put aside uncertainties temporarily so that we can a portfolio of creative ideas. Ask yourself: What if anything were possible?
- Iteration: Any idea is just the beginning of a good idea. Design Thinking is almost like a methodology of learning where we move our portfolio of creative ideas into rapid experimentation and optimise in the most cost effective manner – learn quickly and cheaply!
The value delivered by Design Thinking is not only in creation of better ideas but also in creation of a social technology.
Design Thinking does not tell you which strategy to use but provides better data to make certain strategic choices
Everyone has the potential to create value for the people they serve and organizations need to build a culture to unleash this potential
Shifting employee mindset is the most important way of measuring the impact of integrating Design Thinking into your company strategy
How do you start to understand how to build a better walker? When a team from MIT’s Integrated Design and Management program together with the design firm Altitude took on that task, they met with walker users to interview them, observe them, and understand their experiences.
Interesting illustration of Design Thinking.
Unleash your potential and become ambassadors of design thinking in your companies.
Best regards
Youness LAAMIRI
PhD, LSSBB, PMP, EMBA