Reasons to be... pt 3

Emerging trends around creative reasoning processes, pose new challenges.

A short article i recently published on Medium shares some thoughts about different types of reasoning and some inherent challenges they surface.

For those of us who were educated according to deductive or inductive reasoning, abductive reasoning is an exciting or alarming reasoning approach. If you are incorporating Design Thinking methodologies into your operations, Then you probably start noticing how deductive or inductive reasoning are constraining creativity, by relying too much on external knowledge instead of tacit knowledge and local insights (that often cant be proved immediately) .

While design relies heavily on abductive reasoning (check the article for more explanations), introducing abductive reasoning into a business environment may not be that easy but is possible.

"Even in seemingly ‘hostile’ territory, it is possible for design thinking to prosper – if managers embrace the challenge by employing techniques from the design toolbox." Roger Martin.

Abductive reasoning requires special treatment and in order to overcome the inherited challenges associated with utilizing abductive reasoning we should pay attention to the following:

1. Initiate skepticism
2. Allocate time for dialogue
3. Clarify innovation characteristics

The benefits of productive utilization of abductive reasoning are immense. successful utilization of abductive reasoning leads to a sustainable innovation culture and lean innovation and open innovation practices.

Practising abdutive reasoning during development processes, may very well be your next competitive advantage, whether you are a startup or a corporate.

Join the conversation if you are practising abductive reasoning or interested in learning more. Check out my twitter feed for real time insights on design and innovation management.