Why is design thinking failing us?

Before you roll your eyes and think, "Oh great, another lecture on design thinking," hear me out.

I’m not here to cancel a concept that’s been buzzing around since the ‘70s, revolutionizing how we approach problems.

As with every issue, we’re here to ask why and explore the answers. And there’s no better place to start our conversation today, than at the very beginning.

1970s: Shaping design thinking

Picture it: the 1970s. Big hair, bell-bottoms, and Herbert A. Simon, a Nobel Prize-winning cognitive scientist, who first coined "design as a way of thinking" in his 1969 book, The Sciences of the Artificial. Simon laid out the foundational principles of what we now call design thinking.

Here is what Simon dropped on us back then:

• Design as a Process of Problem-Solving: Simon saw design as a journey from problem to solution, where the designer is the guide, making decisions and course corrections along the way.
• Ill-Structured Problems: Real-world problems are messy. They don’t come with tidy instructions, and part of the designer’s job is to turn chaos into clarity (or at least something that resembles a plan).
• Satisficing, Not Optimizing: Perfection is overrated—and expensive. Simon reminded us that good enough often gets the job done better and faster than chasing some mythical "perfect" solution.
• Bounded Rationality: Humans have limits, and that includes designers. We make decisions with incomplete information, which means aiming for feasible, not flawless.
• Simulation and Modeling: Simon was all about the prototypes. Sketch it out, model it up, simulate it—whatever you need to test before you invest.

But here’s where things get interesting: as time passed, Simon’s principles were remixed, formatted and branded to cater for the masses.

2000s - 2010s: The big time

Fast forward to the 2000s. Design thinking hit its prime-time moment. Suddenly, everyone was using it as the next big thing for innovation and competitive advantage.

Companies were hungry for design thinking workshops, lectures, books, and sticky notes. Oh, the sticky notes. IDEO was front and center, giving us all the user-friendly language and toolkits we needed to feel like we were the next big thing too.

David Kelley launched the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford (aka the d.school), and boom—design thinking became the trendy answer to every business problem.

It was everywhere. Companies wanted it. CEOs demanded it.

Everyone wanted to look a little less corporate and a little more innovative.

The result?

• Piles of sticky notes left to gather dust
• Unsuccessful buy-ins
• Budget cuts = prioritisation
• And a growing skepticism

Where are the wins? Where’s the money? Where are the numbers?

This is where design thinking began to stumble.

2024: Why design thinking is failing us today

Here we are reaching the end of 2024, and design thinking feels a bit like philosophy—it’s fascinating to learn about, but where’s the practical impact?

Design thinking hasn’t failed as a concept—it’s the practitioners who dropped the ball.

Instead of asking why apply design thinking and what success actually looks like - companies and consultants dove headfirst into workshops, exercises, and endless post-it parties.

Money was thrown at problems in desperate bids to innovate, but somewhere along the way, we forgot to ask the essential questions:

• Why does design thinking exist in the first place?
• Why do we want to solve this specific problem?
• And how do we measure success?

So, design thinking, despite its relevance in today’s AI-powered, blockchain-loaded, Web 3.0 world, has become more of a buzzword than a tool for real change.

2025 - 2030: Time to reinvent

It is time to hit reset!

Let’s strip design thinking down to its core principles and rebuild it.

Instead of leaving sticky notes at the graveyard of good ideas, let’s fortify design thinking with:

• Roadmapping
• Forecasting
• Performance data
• Prototyping and early testing
• Asking the right questions
• Digging into historical data
• Co-creating solutions based on real world experiences and facts (bringing executives, designers, researcher and users in the same room)

This way, we will start solving the right problems at their roots.

Let’s bring design thinking back, but this time, with a more intelligent result-driven approach.

Discussion Time

As always, here are a couple of questions I’d love to hear your thoughts on:

1. What’s one way you’ve seen design thinking successfully (or unsuccessfully) implemented in your own work or industry?
2. How can design thinking practitioners, better align design thinking with measurable business outcomes?

Thanks for reading!

Let’s keep the conversation going, and I’ll see you in next week’s issue!