EP02 - Finding Agility Through Design Thinking

The world is always changing. We all know this – as disruptors, we’re leading it. The market used to be dominated by the loudest voice in the room. In that respect, business was simple: build the biggest enterprise. Now, however, power is decentralized. Now success means something different. Customers aren’t looking for one-size-fits-all solutions from incumbent giants, because their businesses are unique.

And so are their needs.

Now, success means creating solutions that are malleable, portable, and innovative. But if we can’t fall back on tried-and-true formulas, where do we start?

For the second installment of our series, I'd like to expand on Design Thinking: the first of three stages in building the kind of agile mindset crucial to a successful digital transformation. It’s a problem-solving approach that involves understanding the needs and requirements of users to design effective and user-friendly solutions. It empowers us to build solutions guided by five (5) key principles:

(1) User-centrism: by keeping our mindset human-centric and focusing on the needs and desires of users, we can produce solutions that are user-friendly, intuitive, and engaging.

(2) Iteration: By trying new things and seeking continuous feedback, we can predict outcomes, quickly improve, and effectively respond to changing demands.

(3) Innovation: Since user-centrism encourages us to constantly explore new, unique solutions, we’re empowered to develop new, disruptive products.

(4) Collaboration: Because design thinking involves so many stakeholders working together to solve complex problems, cross-functional teams can deliver high-quality solutions by building on the unique perspectives of all members.

(5) Empathy: we need to understand our audience – to understand their goals and their challenges – since that’s the only way for us to stay focused on the other dimensions.

These principles guide the first step of developing an agile framework, where cross-functional teams work together to deliver high-quality products and services. That’s our goal – that’s why we do this. And that’s what I think, sincerely, is beautiful about the design process.

In practice, design thinking encompasses the five steps of a non-linear process:

• Empathize: understand our users through a human-centric focus, like the principle above, and determine the persona(s) of our users.
• Define: build on that kind of empathetic, user persona mindset to clarify broad concepts and distill them into quantifiable user stories that highlight users’ unique needs.
• Ideate: take what we’ve defined and build concrete, actionable strategies to address those needs in an agile way.
• Prototype: create iterative and innovative solutions as inexpensive, scaled-down versions of the intended final product to assess their value - and don’t be afraid to fail.
• Test: rigorously experiment with successful prototypes, keeping in mind our guiding principles and using the results to redefine previous stages of the process as needed, until we find something that works.

Because of this non-linear process, design thinking encourages us to constantly learn. As digital nomads, that’s what we’re all about. Good design encompasses macro and micro dimensions from history – what we’ve learned, what we’ve lived, and what we’ve loved – and lets us use those to shape the world around us.

And it's not just about designing for today – it's about designing for the future. With technology rapidly evolving and each of us becoming progressively more comfortable with its role in our lives, it's crucial that we design in ways that prioritize intuitiveness and ease of use.

So let’s commit to understanding the design process, and to embrace empathy, so that we can create experiences that truly make a difference.

The possibilities are endless. Let's explore them together.

Stay tuned for the next one!

/Sarj

Founder at knowledgebasedconsulting.ca