How to make Design Thinking work for you?

Design Thinking or DT in short, has captured the imagination of many. As a trained practitioner I attempted here to summarize the key takeaways from a DT session.

?Design Thinking has been pioneered by IDEO (https://www.ideo.com/) and structured and evangelized as an intervention by the Stanford Design School (https://dschool.stanford.edu/).

Design Thinking, while drawing on traditional innovation methodologies differentiates itself in the following areas:

- Understanding client challenges through detailed empathy sessions

- Focused problem definition in partnership with the client, as right question begets a right answer

- Unconstrained ideation

- Rapid prototyping with low-cost resources, and testing along with clients to ensure quick feedback and modifications

DT has been adopted by many organizations across the world, and we appreciate more than ever before the value of people-centric design for all products and services.

Design Thinking is more of an institutionalized journey rather than a framework and needs to be institutionalized for getting optimal results.

Design Thinking in summary focus on a five-stage process:

Empathy – which is different from sympathy and brings the solvers into the shoes of the entities whose problems we want to solve. This primarily involves an intense exercise of the journey maps, identifying the moments of truths and ensuring that the experience at those points is at least neutral, if not positive. This involves discussions with the stakeholders whose problems we want to solve and define – this step comes from the belief that the answer is always as good as the question. Several interactions are to be done to arrive at a problem statement.

Ideate – all contribute to ideas. There is no good or bad idea. All build on others’ ideas, not find gaps. The goal is to bring all possibilities to the table – whether they appear stupid, smart, audacious, or expensive.

Build – The ideas are now combined in a handful of actionable thoughts, and a prototype is built using a handful of resources that are provided to the participants.

Test – The prototypes are then showcased to the stakeholders, and feedbacks are incorporated for the next iteration. The arrived solutions are then gated through the feedback of the stakeholders.

While terms like Empathy, Ideate, Test, etc. are not new are and are used regularly in the problem-solving context, the Design Thinking methodology is unique in few ways:

1. The end consumer is involved in every stage, from empathy to testing.

2. The entire process is very fast and starts with the belief that multiple iterations are needed before a solution is arrived at.

3. There is possibly more focus on the definition of the problem rather than on the solution, as a great solution of a weakly defined problem is just that – weak.

4. No idea is a bad idea. Organizations typically kill an idea at a nascent stage with the constraints in mind, but DT does not. As DT redefines the concept of constraints and turns it on its head – that most times we do not see the resources that are available to us.

5. The DT does not believe in the hierarchy in the room – whether organizational, functional or any other metrics. This is not guidance; this is practiced as – who knows where the winning idea will be coming from. Cross-functional teams are key.

6. It is collaborative – ideas are not to be junked, but expected everyone will build on the top of others’ ideas.

7. The prototype is built with a limited set of resources, to drive home the point that more often than not we ignore the resources that are staring at us – only to be ignored.

8. Ensures that no significant effort is used in building a prototype so that there is no emotional hangover on letting go. The pilots are done quickly and fast, with the idea of changing.

How to make a Design Thinking session successful?

The following are some of the experiential learnings.

Before the session:

1. A set of Empathy sessions with a few of the key stakeholders either in person or on call, to understand the key pain points.

2. A study of the industry and the organization and mapping the industry challenges with the pain points mentioned.

The goal is to identify a set of problems that will be taken up on the Day 2 of the DT sessions.

During session:

1.?A location where the members will not be pulled out for distractions.

2. Ideally 18-30 member team. Cross-functional.

The session:

Duration: One and a half-day.

Day 1 – introduction of the concept with a series of examples, role-plays, and games. Addressing a set of generic problems using the constructs.

Identification of the actuals problems which will be taken up for solution on Day 2.

Day 2 – Recap, problem-solving using DT framework, way forward.

Post-session:

1.??????Ensuring a significant coverage of the workforce with DT - ideally using the Train the Trainer methodology.

2.??????Build senior management ownership, make DT part of organizational lingo.

3.??????Bringing in DT as a problem-solving methodology across the organization, across departments, across functions, across businesses.

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