How do you solve problems quicker with Design Thinking?

Last week I was delivering a workshop to one of my clients and we got into a great conversation about an important point that's eluding many IT teams when it comes to how they should deal with problems. I see this over and over again, teams get trapped fighting fires and keeping the lights on which hurts their overall ability to deliver business solutions.

When viewing business issues through a Digital Transformation lens, it's important to change your perspective, to focus on identifying solutions and create greater value for users. So how do you do this?

I love this classic Design Thinking technique called How Might We (HMW). It's a simple and effective exercise that re-frames problems to show that a solution is possible. Here are the 3 steps:

1. Give everyone post-its and pens and ask them to write down problems framed as questions starting with the phrase 'How might we…?'. For example, How might we make it easier for business users to access data?. The trick is to discover a range of ideas with unique, specific solutions. Don't make the questions too broad otherwise the you won't get to practical solutions. Focus on questions that are relevant to your team or department.
2. Next, pick 3 or 4 key HMW questions to solve. Pick the questions that are specific and relevant and if solved, are the most impactful to your team.
3. Then brainstorm solutions for each of the key HMW questions. You'll find that solutions flow easily and people will give a more creative and innovative ideas because the HMW questions encourage new ways of thinking.

When I run a HMW exercise during workshops I always get inspired and energized because I see light bulb moment throughout client teams when they realize their problems aren't that difficult to solve. What does this look in real life? A client's users were frustrated by not having access to important control system data, after framing the problem as HMW, we quickly realized we had 3 easy solutions including data dashboards and setting up weekly data sharing meetings. This is a great example, not only did the exercise produce collaboration and creative thinking in the team for looking at the problem in a new way, it resulted in valuable insights used to improve production efficiency.

If you want more innovation and growth in your teams, Design Thinking techniques such as How Might We problem solving is a great way to do this. New thinking will result in better, often straightforward solutions to help frustrated users and ultimately raise the value of IT.