Applying Design Thinking in Career Management

Three years ago, I started a change in my career. It was not a simple process. There are many variables to consider and steps to take to decide when to move and where to move. In this process, I talked to many people, used many tools, went through processes of self-knowledge, and so on. After all, it worked! I made it! Now I am in the place I want to be and with a clear career trajectory in front of me to follow.

Some friends asked for my help to do the same and I found in Design Thinking, the mindset and the tools that could summarize the process I have been through. And that’s what I’m going to share with you now.

Design Thinking

Design Thinking is a problem-solving and project management approach whose three pillars are: Empathy, Collaboration, and Experimentation. It opens up a range of innovative solutions to the problem and at the same time relevant to the user.

The great value is that Design Thinking is a way of thinking! A mindset that enables solutions to be both innovative and meaningful. Using this mindset to manage your career helps you see beyond what you see right now, get into the current context, and bring innovative solutions for the barriers you found out.

Design Thinking Principles and Tools

1. Immersion (Empathize)

In the process of Design Thinking, the first step is to immerse yourself in the subject. And, as Design Thinking is about creating from the user’s look, knowing the product or service very well and who is going to use it is not enough. It is necessary to think how the user thinks, feel how he feels and speaks as he speaks. That’s empathy! And it is the best way to generate effective solutions and reveal hidden opportunities to innovate.

In a career evaluation, this step is about immersing yourself so that you can reveal what opportunities to innovate are hidden or if there is something blocking or bothering you. The Empathy Map is a tool used in Design Thinking that helps put yourself in the user’s shoes and capture your point of view. I have adapted this tool to help you evaluate how your current career situation is. Use this tool to delve deeper into you, seeking to look at professional aspects you have not yet noticed, and reveal important information for the next steps.

Another tool is the User’s Journey. Use it by looking for an ordinary day in your present or previous job, the one that did not make you happy or satisfied your needs. And put in temporal order, what were your actions/activities and what were the emotions related to it. The purpose of this journey is to help you understand what your pain points are on this journey, so you can work on how to improve them.

Tip 1: Design Thinking is Collaboration! So try to call a friend, relative or co-worker to help you build this map. You can do the same in all of the following steps. Engage other people in the process together, so everyone can participate in this career management and collaborate with each other. You can be sure that you will be very rich! ;)

Tip 2: For this first phase, if you have the opportunity, take a professional self-assessment to enrich your empathy map. This was essential for me, it brought me a lot of information about my professional performance, my strengths and weaknesses. The test I have done is paid, I believe there must be other types that are free. But I guarantee that it is an investment and so much for those who are in this phase of rethinking the future of their career.

Tip 3: Trust the process! As much as you obviously know what your day-to-day life is, when you put yourself in the position of the observer, you can understand many nuisances that go unnoticed. And they may be the ones you need to adjust.

2. Definition

In this step, the synthesis of what was raised in the immersion of both relevant information and insights is made. And from that, it is defined as the question that will be worked out.

The first step is to interpret and organize the information that came out on the map of empathy. You can start by making an Affinity — grouping the information from points in common between them. The objective is to extract from this information, some pattern that reveals the question to be worked out.

For example, you may notice that there has been recurring information about the lack of challenges in your current work environment, or overwork and pressure, or lack of interest in performing tasks, or even lack of compatibility with your co-workers. Explore and combine the information until this broader issue emerges.

3. Ideation

This is the stage of devising solutions to the issue. Usually, it is when using the already famous Brainstorm. But it is possible to go beyond that. The deepening of this phase guarantees more innovative ideas!

Now you already have a question to work on. And to potentiate the generation of ideas that will bring answers to your question, you need a lot of inspiration! Inspiration can come from the second phase of immersion where you Research the subject of the issue, talk to people who can add interesting points of view, watch related movies, or anything else that inspires you in generating ideas.

With high inspiration, start generating ideas for that question. Set aside a moment just for this. Be free to write whatever comes to your head. Do not over-formulate, use simple but complete phrases. Try to generate a lot of ideas right now. Do not dwell on logistical questions of how to apply, or what can go wrong. The purpose of brainstorming is to take you to places different from what you see at the moment. That is why it is important to follow the flow of ideas that come, without barring them.

And always keep in mind that you have to generate ideas that solve your issue.

When you feel the flow is over, it’s time to organize these ideas. For this, you can use a Decision Matrix — a tool that visually separates the ideas in question from relevancy and simplicity of application.

In the end, select the most relevant and simplest implementation ideas and start solving your challenge.

4. Prototype

This is the time to think about putting the idea in the world. The prototyping phase is still a time to capture new insights, but already putting the possible solutions in the context of reality. Is to wet the foot before diving.

No matter what the main ideas that came out of ideation, when it comes to career, it is important to be careful not to jeopardize everything you have achieved so far. Therefore, making prototypes is the best way to visualize and enhance the solutions that have emerged, ensuring that the process will be thought step by step.

The most important thing is to keep in mind where you want to get with this prototype and not get lost along the way.

One tool that can be used is the Storyboard. It is used in the production of films and animations because it simulates step by step before being made the complete production. You use this feature to make your solutions step-by-step, to predict possible errors, and to correct them before testing.

5. Testing

The last stage of the process requires the courage to roll up the sleeves and really put the solution in the world. It will be a stage of experimentation, mistakes, learning and new experiments. The secret of this phase is to “go with what you have, without fear of making mistakes” means that you should not be paralyzed because the idea is still immature, or it is not the perfect idea.

But always have a strategy to not hinder your career!

At first, you may not have much idea of ​​what the end result will be, but you can show that you know. Of course, as long as it does not detract from your work! Observe if the plan is coming out as planned in the prototype, if it is not, try to quickly analyze which adjustments should be made. To optimize this capture of settings, you can use the tool That's is Good! What about? What a pity. — are three basic questions that can be asked whenever needed, or at each test step to give you the information of what is going well, what can be improved, and what needs to be eliminated.

At this stage work through your confidence in running the solution, you will need it. For those who make this move, it is a very rich phase of learning. And if the whole process was well done, the chances of improving your career will be very great!

Process management

To manage the entire process or at least the testing phase, you can use a Kanban with all the details of your plan for the transition. In this way, in addition to being a reminder of the steps to be taken, you follow your evolution. This is a way of giving dimension to what is being executed, besides being a great manager of anxiety.

If you want to know more about or have the tools, just write to me and I can send I the Design Thinking tools personalized for Career Management. :)