The Design Thinking loop to incite your Innovation spirit

Entrepreneur spirit , mind and feelings are all the time "ON" to what is happening around them , as problem solvers , they will try – Intuitively to turn each problem they live , they feel , they observe or the witness on others in their environment into a challenge to solve , into an opportunity of business !!!

Surrounded with several issues, look for the one that talks to you the most, reveals things inside of you!

Usually designers , inventors , innovators are surrounded with several items , sometimes it’s looks like messy , heterogeneous and no-sense environment, this is done in purpose , as per Stanford university researchers , the most we expose ourselves to things , we touch , feel , hear & smell several things increases our innovation’ potential and we intend to be more creative and thinking out of the box with very unique solutions.

So, you need to keep your senses awake, aware of what you do have around of you, your next project’s  idea, innovation and may be your business is just in the nearby ! The most you identify yourself in the problem the most your solution will be real, genuine & coming from heart, to touch hearts, and customers tends to buy nowadays what talks to their hearts more than their brains.

“ The most your business ideas are linked to your area of interest , your passion , your life motives , the most you will persevere to achieve it , and enjoy it ups & downs” k.Hammachi.

Design thinking process :

Design thinking is a philosophy feed with a set of tools to solve complex problems -characterized by several unknown factors- providing creative and innovative solutions. It is looking into the problem via people who are suffering from it, examining different axles to find out the trade-off to reduce or overcome the impact. The originality of Design thinking is the necessity to go through breaking existing rules , old habits , assumptions and patterns , using more the what if ? Nurtured by intuition but backed with real facts gathering in the same time.

Why ? Because , Design thinking is a human-centric process to innovate and resolve complex problems. Therefore , basic questions are :

Who you are designing for?

What are their needs?

Design thinking is a broad road map and no strict predefined tools to use, common mains can be used, while it is a real case by case tailor made process, based on the customer’s needs & nature of solutions you aim to work-on.  The most relevant skills a designer must have are listed in each steps in the coming paragraphs.

A preliminary phase , before the design thinking journey is :

Understanding

So, Once you get this brilliant idea, stick to it , investigate around, understand deeper , learn , improve your know-how to start lightening your next candle in the world of business.

Start by your Why ?

This why is either yours, when the issues was experienced by yourself, but can also be –in the most of the cases- the why of your customers?

“Customer is the one to tell you his pain point but also the source of the Solution!” hk

As the DT is human centric process, we need to understand people you are designing the product or service for ,

Who are they?

What are their problems?

In this phase, the purpose is to engage with people in order to understand their psychological & emotional side, although , you created in the inderstanding phase your preconceived perception & assumptions of the problem , you must avoid jumping into conclusion , but do your best to follow the stream of customers ideas , gathering real insights from real people you are designing for.

In the  “customer discovery process”,  you need to be  in the shoes of people you are trying to help , and solve their struggles , live their days , prepare a set of customized questions for your customers, do it smoothly and gradually, go through their daily routines , the obstacles they face to improve their performance in the area of your study , and sometimes you need just to go into different directions during your interviews , keeping in mind the milestones of the questionaries’ , but more in deep in feelings and emotions that’s will reveals the most of the pain points.

In this phase, don’t judge given ideas & expressed feelings, do not deviate from original statement of the customers, or manipulate to influence and baize collected data & information that are the essence for the next steps and project success.

The most requested abilities to apply empathy are active listening, open mind & observation.

You gathered all the facts, observations and information and come to a conclusion based on the “everything” you have learnt during empathize phase, what are your customers’ needs? Problems barriers and challenges they are facing, what were the patterns you could notice. The insights you gathered must help you to recognize the real pain, the priority of priorities for your customers that if you can resolve you can improve drastically their routine. Define the problem in a way to put the customers emotions expressed earlier in that problem statement, be clear , precise and concise in the definition , concentrating all what have been said in the “one important fact” to solve.

Creativity has no barriers except the ones we build for ourselves by narrowing down our vision & imagination, working alone on assumptions of solutions & focusing on available solutions as they are the best. Thus, in order to achieve the highest outcome from this phase, working with teams from different perspectives and backgrounds, prepare the brainstorming or focus group sessions in advance, and moderate the session by collecting as much as possible solutions, moving from the focus approach used during the Define phase to a fare and diverging process of ideation, crazy & unrealistic options are accepted and posted on the story-board without judgment or exclusion.

To cover different options, you can use the Now-wow & How matrix, classifying options regarding their originality & feasibility, grouping after the 1st iteration of brainstorming, you will be able to go through a new round looking for affinities or focus-group technics to group them, in the other hand, you can use mind-map for example, to move deeper in different options of initial stage.

From the ideas and options you gathered in the ideation phase, take the most feasible and original ones, and develop a prototype of that solution. A prototype is scale-down, simple, small & testable version of the real solutions you aim to implement after being validated.

The idea is to approximate the full & real solution you want to implement to resolve the issue, and in order to create this near-by scenario you might sketch it; use storyboard and post its, storytelling, role playing, which are less costly solution called Infidel prototype. You can use “Fidel prototypes” that use a small and similar format with wood or other material of the product you aim to develop, or an early simple version of the app you are developing.

The idea here , is to move fast & effective , toward the creation of the final solution , because of the nature of the deign thinking process and philosophy we can’t be sure of the feedback of the customers for the solution without testing at list the prototype; the most the prototype is closer to the real solution, feedback from customers will help to shape the reliable final ( well version n°1 ) solution to theme.

Test with the real people: your users & your clients. They will provide feedback , new insights , ideas and this will deepen your empathy with your customers, and will allow you to go in the design thinking loop again and again to reach the viable & relevant solution to your customer.

Is it the end of the story?

No , as an eager designer you will go over and over in the Design thinking , being closer to your customer showing empathy , they will share and you will improve your understanding of their pain , to enhance your solutions or bring news ones.

The Design thinking process is similar to the Lean start-up loop: idea- build-launch-data-idea , the trap is to avoid getting in the build phase for ever trying to have the perfect solution from the 1st round. It is important to apply design thinking together with agile approach & lean start-up methodology “ to get into your  first solution, soon” because business is evolving and the time you sick for your 360° perfect solution , this last might be obsolete ! We advise using 5 days Design Sprint, to move forward promptly & efficiently.

 Several versions of Design thinking were born since 1st version from Stanford University in 2009 , and each corporate such as : Google , IBM or universities , such as : MIT , John Hopkins or others are confirming that Design thinking improves organisation creativity & market responsiveness , increase return on investments & almost doubles teams’ efficiency.