Design Thinking

Design thinking is a methodology for creative problem solving. Design thinking revolves around a deep interest in developing an understanding of the people for whom we’re designing the products or services. It helps us observe and develop empathy with the target user (Standford d.school, 2018) Before I talk about how design thinking practices are fantastic for businesses, I first want to spend a minute explaining how design thinking is a way of life.

A recent article in the Washington Post by Phyllis Fagell, explains how design thinking can help parents ‘raise resourceful children’. Design thinkers do not believe in one right solution and therefore parents should throw away their user guidelines. Ironically, the Washington Post article outlines 10 design thinking ways for parenting. However, if you dive deeper into the fundamental methodology, design thinking is about constantly generating ideas and testing them. It can be as simple as a parent testing out new techniques and approaches on how to get your child to eat their broccoli.

 So why use design thinking?

“Design-led companies such as Apple, Coca-Cola, IBM, Nike, Procter & Gamble and Whirlpool have outperformed the S&P 500 over the past 10 years by an extraordinary 219%” – that’s the statistical answer. The logical answer, design thinking brings innovation, innovation creates a competitive advantage. However, the answer I believe is most useful as to why use design thinking in your organization is because it creates longevity and culture. The great Nobel laureate Herbert Simon frames this perfectly;

“Engineering, medicine, business, architecture, and painting are concerned not with the necessary but with the contingent—not how things are but how they might be—in short, with design…Everyone designs who devises courses of action aimed at changing existing situations into preferred ones.”

—Herbert Simon, Nobel Prize laureate (1969)

I must reference the person who recently sparked my delight for this topic, John Kembel. John is the co-founder of DGLOBAL and is a member of the d.school at Standford University – a leading institution in the field of design thinking. At my current role, I had to the pleasure of working with John at a design thinking workshop and I was blown away by his passion for the methodology. John himself represents the true meaning of design thinking – he even applies it to his parenting.

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Luca Feser, Adecco CEO For One Month Switzerland

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