Obstacles to Innovation in Design Thinking

It happens to the best of us. We’ve all got great ideas and we were all excited to make them happen. But when we started introducing these brilliant gems to each other — wham! Up go the roadblocks.
Obstacles to innovation can crawl up when you least expect them. This is exactly what happened with us right after the brainstorming session when we had to choose 1 idea.
I can’t stress the role of emotion enough. I found that there are two main things that ought to get enough consideration in journey mapping, brainstorming and during the whole capstone process; emotion and motivation. Yes, I felt a bit demotivated when they chose 1 of the shortlisted ideas that I least preferred or related to.
No, I don’t think I was demotivated because we didn’t choose the other shortlisted idea, which was mine. But, because I believe that we didn’t dig deeper and gave it enough time before ditching it. Also, because my team was ignoring some major influencing factors while trying to develop the 1st idea which makes it irrelevant in the UAE. I believe that we are setting ourselves up for a potentially negative result, or may even be creating an even more problematic situation than the one we are trying to develop.
I don’t want to say that we don’t really have the optimum working environment for design thinking, innovating but some factors, not exhaustive ones; influences how conducive the team can be when solving problems, so I see that it is extremely important to be cognizant of how small and seemingly unimportant factors can adversely affect the team’s progress to achieving innovation.

Egos Get in the Way
At times, we can be our own enemies when it comes to working in teams trying to tackle problems. If we’re centered around ourselves, showing off, on egos and asserting ourselves over others, we will most likely run into issues. Not only will there almost definitely be conflicts within the team, we will also tend to fall in love with our own ideas and refuse to accept it when tests show that the solution is not working with the target audience.

I believe that solving problems with others requires a sincere desire to achieve the objectives together. We should provide room for each other to present our own views, thoughts, feelings and experiences (don’t get too personal), thereby allowing a more holistic approach to solving the problem. There should be no room for egos in an innovative design thinking.
Our goal should always be to create a space where obstacles are understood and removed or neutralized while exploring solutions.
Ignore whatever I said! working in teams is actually fun &
.
.
Keep Innovating!
