Design Thinking - More Than Just a Method

Written by the Innovation Roundtable? Research Team

Author: Mark Dahl-Jensen, Innovation Roundtable?

?Over the past few years, we have experienced a host of insightful presentations on design/design thinking at our events. Our research team, while analyzing a considerable amount of data (emanating from presentations and roundtable discussions) in preparing summaries and reports, has been able to recognize some significant trends within the field of design thinking that reappeared over several events.

We have outlined three of these below:

1.    Building a Design-Driven Culture

A recurring theme is that design thinking is considered more than just a process or method. It can be used to implement change in organizations and become an element of the corporate culture. Speakers from Bosch, 3M, and Deutsche Telekom, to name a few, have all emphasized how pivotal design thinking is in altering the mindsets of people within an organization to prioritize solutions based on customer insights.

At the Innovation Roundtable? Summit 2017, Monica Dalla Riva, Head of Design Europe at 3M, explained that design thinking should not be considered just another process for innovation. There are already a lot of processes in place at 3M that prove fruitful for innovation purposes. The unique contribution of design thinking is grounded on the fact that it facilitates the development of a customer-centric culture. She further explained that such a mindset shift takes time, which is why it is important to conduct awareness sessions on design across the company and make use of first-movers/design ambassadors to spread awareness of the benefits human-centricity brings.

At the workshop on Front End and Design Thinking hosted by HEINEKEN in Amsterdam (2017), further insights were gained into the typical trajectory of how design thinking evolves from being a method to becoming a culture - over the course of three distinct phases:

1. Method
2. Mindset
3. Culture

It was argued that companies initially integrate design thinking due to its solution-based approach for problem-solving. During the subsequent “make it happen” phase, top management allocates resources behind initiatives, design thinking principles become increasingly clear, and it slowly evolves from a method to a mindset. The final phase is characterized as one where design thinking shifts from being a mindset to a general organizational culture. This is where design thinking is integrated into a company’s value system, principles are adapted to a company’s own system and context, and initiatives are anchored – which all contribute to driving value creation.

At the Innovation Roundtable? workshop hosted by 3M in London (2017), Christian Saclier, Global Head of Industrial Design at Nestlé, also touched on how design has advanced over time within Nestlé. Fifteen years back, design was merely a packaging consideration. The scope of design at Nestlé has since changed dramatically to embrace products, systems, and services. Today, designers are working on advancing the digital personal nutrition initiative, a huge priority area for the company, demonstrating that designers are moving on to far greater areas. 

How should companies build a design-driven culture?

Saclier advocates a need to start small, gather evidence, and measure/share results – these are initial steps that must be taken towards building a fully embedded culture of design. At the same event, Jean Pierre Pélicier, Innovation & Strategy Director at Air Liquide, backed the notion of starting small, explaining that i-Lab, the innovation lab for developing medium and long-term opportunities at Air Liquide, provided the means to experiment with design thinking on a small-scale. With top management being able to see results, the CEO is now publicly communicating that the company should evolve and transform with an emphasis on customer-centricity - i-Lab has played a huge part in this becoming a focal point.  

2.    More Than a Product Design Methodology

Design thinking is increasingly becoming a means to attain a competitive advantage across the value chain, not just for product development. To illustrate, Jean-Pierre Pélicier conveyed how i-Lab had connected with its internal industrial teams to ensure that work processes were connected and digitized. I-Lab staff observed technicians and maintenance field workers in action to see how they operate, with the objective to uncover latent needs. Among results from this initiative, i-Lab came up with a fully interactive virtual plant environment.

3M has used design thinking to advance the marketing of its innovations. Like many other B2B companies, 3M conducts tech days, inviting customers in to present its newest technology solutions. In working to enhance this experience, the design team worked closely with customer teams to understand what they care about and need. The goal was to develop a meaningful event worth attending. Customer insights portrayed how 3M was considered to hold a competitive advantage in three key areas: sustainability, design, and technology platforms. The design team used such insights to ultimately create an experience, through which customers immerse themselves into the 3M world. In entering the experience, customers get the chance to see a wide array of information in terms of what characterizes 3M from a sustainability, design, and technology standpoint. The redesigned event enabled 3M to appropriately articulate its areas of expertise – driven by customer needs.

In a similar vein, Saclier has talked about how Nestle's design team has made efforts to further integrate with brand identity. At one point it dawned on him that, while the design team had its strengths in understanding technologies and user needs, branding was often an afterthought – while it, in fact, may be necessary to have branding as the starting point. Designers are therefore contemplating where the brand can go and where consumers will allow it to go. Its brand foundation relies on sensory branding, with the design team considering how to leverage all five senses to make deeper connections with consumers.

3.    Design vs. Design Thinking

At the 2017 workshop on Design and R&D hosted by 3M, speakers encouraged making a clear distinction between the function of design and the activity of design thinking. Design itself is a deeply specialized craft, whereas design thinking was best described as a discipline that allows for employees across functions to use design methods to match people’s needs with what is technologically feasible and viable from a business point of view. As mentioned, this can prove a powerful methodology to influence a corporate culture towards a greater focus on customers – mainly because all functions get involved.

Does the democratization of design principles then affect the role of actual designers?

Panelists at the event were adamant that design thinking should be considered an instrument as part of the larger act of design. Design thinking ensures that people across functions always have customers first in mind, while designers, on top of that, are specialized in creating the prototypes and visualizations to be tested on users.

Saclier recommended companies to not only hire people with design thinking backgrounds to attend to fundamental design activities. Design needs to be managed by designers, as they have the professional competences to interlink technologies with user needs. Design thinking, on the other hand, requires federated ownership to become part of the organizational culture.

Should companies integrate designers within R&D in an effort to build a design-driven culture?

According to 3M’s Chief Design Officer, Eric Quint, this isn’t necessarily a preferred scenario. In large R&D departments, designers would typically lack the critical mass needed to get their thoughts across and integrate design effectively. He advocates creating dedicated creative spaces for designers, where they have "the oxygen" to explore new ideas and think outside-the-box. The design leaders in charge of such an entity must then ensure that the design team engages with the various functions in a company to integrate design thinking across all levels.

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