Design Thinking: New approach for Human Resource

Introduction

"Most people make the mistake of thinking design is what it looks like. People think it's this veneer - that the designers are handed this box and told, 'Make it look good!' That's not what we think design is. It's not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works." - Steve Jobs

Design thinking, when someone hears this word then suddenly it might be thinking about its related to art or User Interface or design-related things. But, design thinking is not limited only to art or user interface design streams. It is not an exclusive property of designers. Design thinking is a complex business solution. It is a Non-linear approach or process. People live and work in a world of interlocking systems, where many of the problems they face are dynamic, multifaceted, and inherently human. Currently, many people are facing the BANI [acronym: Brittle, Anxious, Nonlinear & Incomprehensible] & VUCA [acronym: Volatile, Uncertain, Complex & Ambiguous]. In this world many unpredictable things people face in their business. After the world crisis with Covid - 19 pandemic, businesses and entrepreneurs understand the importance of humans and their roles in business growth and development. So now businesses are trying to focus on human-centric techniques rather than following traditional approaches for growth and development. Now, businesses are adopting creative approaches and innovation in their business strategies. Thinking like a designer can transform the way organizations develop products, services, processes, and strategies. This approach, which is known as design thinking, brings together what is desirable from a human point of view with what is technologically feasible and economically viable.?

What is Design Thinking?

Design thinking is generally defined as an analytic and creative process that engages a person to experiment, create and prototype models, gather feedback, and redesign. Design thinking is an innovative approach to innovation and problem-solving that takes design perspectives and processes and applies them to problems that designers don’t typically encounter.?

Design thinking is an innovation process. It goes through 3 stages. First, we were inspired by empathy for the people (employees) followed by ideation and implementation. Design Thinking goes through 5 phases.?

1. Empathize
2. Define
3. Ideate
4. Prototype
5. Test

“Design Thinking is a way of looking at innovation, to find the intersection between human values, technical capability, and commercial viability.”

So, we can say Design Thinking is extremely helpful that is ill-defined or unknown. It is an iterative method that helps to resolve people (employees) in alternative strategies and solutions.?

History of Design Thinking

In the mid 60’s - Horst Rittel, Design Theorist wrote comprehensively on the subject of problem-solving in design, that term he called "Wicked Problems". Wicked problems are at the very heart of Design Thinking because it is precisely these complex and multi-dimensional problems that require a collaborative methodology that involves gaining a deep understanding of humans.

In the 1970’s - Computer scientist and Nobel Prize laureate Herbert A. Simon introduced to design as a science. It's also known as the Way of Thinking. He explains this concept in his book Science of Artificial. Herbert A Simon contributed many thoughts related to Design Thinking.?

In the 70’s one person contributed thoughts on Design Thinking. His name is Robert H. McKim. He tries to elaborate on the concept of Design Thinking. As per his thoughts, the impact visual thinking had on our understanding of things and our ability to solve problems. In his book (Book - Design Thinking Methodology), he explains very new things. He touched on various aspects of visual thinking and design methods for solving problems with an emphasis on combining the left and right brain modes of thinking, to bring about a more holistic form of problem-solving.

In the 80’s - Nigel Cross wrote a paper as Emeritus Professor of Design Studies at The Open University, UK. He explains the nature of a designer’s problem-solving. His paper name is Designerly ways of knowing. His mostly focus on cross-compared designers’ problem solving to the non-design-related problem solutions we develop in our everyday lives.

In the 90’s - IDEO (IDEO is a Global Design & Innovation Company) accepted Design Thinking to the mainstream. By using Design Thinking, IDEO developed its user-friendly technology, toolkits & steps. After two years, Richard Buchanan (the Head of Design at Carnegie Mellon University) published his paper, Wicked Problems in Design Thinking. In this paper, he focuses on the origins of Design Thinking. He also elaborated with clarity that Design Thinking has formed as a means of integrating these highly specialized fields of knowledge so that they can be jointly applied to the new problems we are faced with from a holistic perspective.

Between 1990 to 2000 - we can call this era - The First Wave. After 2000, The second wave started Design Thinking.?

In 2005 - The Stanford School of Design or the d.school (Today this is called the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design)? had started teaching Design Thinking. In this course, they made the development, teaching, and implementation of Design Thinking one of its own central goals since its inception.?

Currently, Design Thinking is a similar movement. This movement is capturing the current world rapidly.

Principle of Design Thinking

Design Thinking is a human-centric approach to solving problems by creative and innovative thinking. It is based on methods and processes. Design Thinking has four principles. This principle was laid out by Christoph Meinel and Harry Leifer of the Hasso-Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford University, California.?

1. Human-Centric - This is the main principle of Design Thinking. When we try to design or create an innovation then we need to always consider human-centric approaches. By this principle, we better understand what people (Employees) need. How they behave and incorporate that understanding of people (Employees) needs into every aspect of our process.
2. Embrace the Ambiguity - Ambiguity is that thing that is not inevitable, and it cannot be removed or oversimplified. Experimenting at the limits of your knowledge and ability is crucial in being able to see things differently. As per this principle, we need to reframe our problem or look at it from all conceivable angles to get several possible solutions.
3. Redesign - Change is part of Nature. The world is changing so fast. When we see updated technology then we realize this. So, we need to always redesign our processes and thinking.
4. Tangibility - We need to make ideas tangible in the form of prototypes. Because on that basis we are able to communicate with people more effectively.

The Phases of Design Thinking

The Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford describes Design Thinking as a five-phase process. These five phases are more useful for making a healthy and productive environment. These phases are not always sequential, and we can often run them in parallel, out of order, and repeat them in an iterative fashion. The phases of Design Thinking is below-?

1. Empathize - In this phase, we need to research what exactly people are facing issues or problems. We need to understand their problems by empathizing with them. Empathy is the main phase of Design Thinking. Empathy provides us the critical initial point for understanding the problems. In this phase, we map people’s behavior, how they behave on the floor? How’s their body language in the meeting? How can we engage them? On these observations, we find many things. I called this People Mapping because we try to understand people’s psychological and emotional levels. During this phase, we seek to set aside people’s iteratively repeat their assumptions and gather real insights about problems.
2. Define - In this phase, we define the problems. In the first phase, we gather all the information and insights which help to understand the problems and now we start to make sense of them. We categorize that problem and by the end, we will get clear problem statements. When we are in this phase then we need to focus on the human-centric principle. We formulate that problem into words, and on that basis, we can come up with good solutions.
3. Ideate - When we map people’s and clear about their problems and we formulate those problems and categorize them then we start working on potential solutions. Now in this phase, we upgrade ourselves as creative thinkers. We try to find out a potential solution for solving the problems. In this phase, we need to require creativity and think up as many solutions. Like we can bring up ideas without judging, we can document the ideas then we can collaborate with team members.? In this phase, we can use many brainstorming techniques or methods for solving problems creatively.
4. Prototype - A prototype is basically a scaled-down version of the product. This phase is key in putting each solution to the test and highlighting any constraints and flaws. In this phase, we turn ideas into tangible solutions. Throughout the prototype phase, the proposed solutions may be accepted, improved, redesigned, or rejected depending on how they fare in prototype form.
5. Test - This phase is the end of the Design Thinking process. When we turn ideas into tangible solutions in the prototype phase. Then now we test the solution. After testing we get results. This phase provides insights we need to redefine the problem statement and come up with new ideas we hadn’t thought of before.

Why Is Design Thinking so Important?

Design thinking enables organizations to create lasting value for people. It is “Human-Centered”, which means that it uses how people (employees) actually engage with the organization’s vision, mission & values. HR needs to always have human-centric approaches. They can adhere to the people engaging with the organization’s vision, mission, and value and if finds any disengagement then they can continue to refine processes or policies based on the people’s experience at the organization. Sometimes people do not articulate their problems. At that time as an HR, it was very difficult to define or understand their problems and challenges. Design Thinking helps to understand people's problems and by defining them get proper solutions to people’s problems and challenges. Design Thinking brings together the desirability from the people’s perspective with what is technologically feasible and economically viable.?

Source:

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