Reshaping Business Model Innovation with Design Thinking

Design Thinking is both an ideology and a process, concerned with solving complex problems in a highly user-centric way. In this article, we’ll give you a detailed definition of the Design Thinking Framework, illustrating exactly what the process involves, and underline why it matters: What is the value of Design Thinking, and in what contexts is it particularly useful?

All sound a little overwhelming? Don’t worry–we’ve broken the guide down into digestible chunks, and included real-life examples. Check out this canvas on Pitchspot for a gentle introduction on how GitHub’s business model can be adopted using the Design Thinking Framework!

“Design thinking is a human-centered approach to innovation that draws from the designer’s toolkit to integrate the needs of people, the possibilities of technology, and the requirements for business success.” — Tim Brown, CEO of IDEO

Design thinking was coined in the 1990’s by David Kelley and Tim Brown of IDEO, with Roger Martin, and encapsulated methods and ideas that have been brewing for years into a single unified concept.

Adopting the Design Thinking Framework utilizes elements from the individual’s toolkit like empathy and experimentation to arrive at innovative solutions. It transforms the way organizations develop products, services, processes, and strategy, while bringing together what is desirable from a human point of view with what is technologically feasible and economically viable.

Phases of the Design Thinking Process

Empathise: Understanding the human needs involved.

Empathy provides the critical starting point for Design Thinking. The first stage of the process is to gain an empathic understanding of the problem you are trying to solve, which involves getting to know the user and understanding their wants, needs and objectives. Directly observe what they do, how they think, and what they want, asking yourself things like ‘what motivates or discourages users?’ or ‘where do they experience frustration?’

This means observing and engaging with people in order to understand them on a psychological and emotional level, thereby filling in the ‘User interview’ and ‘Analyze customer’s perspective’ cards.

Define: Re-framing and defining the problem in human-centric ways.

Now you will gather all of your findings from the empathise phase and start to make sense of them: what difficulties and barriers are your users coming up against? What patterns do you observe? What is the big user problem that your team needs to solve? This is where you will analyse your observations and synthesise them in order to define the core problems that you have identified. Don’t forget to add your analyses into the ‘Question/additional information’ and ‘New perspective’ cards!

By the end of the Define phase, you will have a clear problem statement. The key here is to frame the problem in a user-centered way; rather than saying “We need to …”, frame it in terms of your user: “Users need to …”

Once you’ve formulated the problem into words, you can start to come up with solutions and ideas — which brings us onto stage three.

Ideate: Creating many ideas in ideation sessions.

After growing to understand your users needs, and synthesising your observations in the Define stage, you are ready to generate your own ideas! Brainstorm a range of crazy, creative ideas that address the users’ needs. Give yourself total freedom; no idea is too far fetched!

It is important to get as many ideas or problem solutions as possible at the beginning of the Ideation phase, so let your brain juices flow! Don’t forget to document all of these ideas down into the ‘ideate’ card. Towards the end of the ideation phase, you’ll narrow it down to a few ideas with which to move forward.

Prototype: Adopting a hands-on approach in prototyping.

Now things are getting exciting; The fourth step in the Design Thinking process is all about experimentation and turning ideas into tangible products! This is an experimental phase, and the aim is to identify the best possible solution for each of the problems identified during the first three stages.

Build real, tactile scaled-down versions for your ideas. One by one, the prototypes are investigated and either accepted, improved and re-examined, or rejected on the basis of the users’ experiences. By the end of this stage, the design team will have a better idea of the constraints inherent to the product.

Test: Developing a solution to the problem

This is where it gets real! Return to your users for feedback on the prototype, thereby gaining a clearer view of how users would behave, think, and feel when interacting with the end product. Ask yourself ‘Does this solution meet users’ needs?’ and ‘Has it improved how they feel, think, or do their tasks?’

Implement

Most importantly, put the vision into effect. As impactful as design thinking can be for an organization, it only leads to true innovation if the vision is executed. The success of design thinking lies in its ability to materialize the solution and touch the lives of users.

Non-linear nature of Design Thinking

The above process will feel abstruse at first. Don’t think of it as if it were a prescribed step-by-step recipe for success. Although we talk about the process in terms of sequential steps, it’s actually a highly iterative and cyclical loop. With each phase, you’ll make new discoveries which may require you to revisit the previous stages. As IDEO founder David Kelley says, design thinking is not a linear path, “it’s a big mass of looping back to different places in the process.”

Benefits of Design Thinking

#1 Fosters innovation

Design Thinking fosters a culture of innovation, and is all about challenging assumptions and established beliefs, encouraging all stakeholders to think outside the box.

#2 Significantly reduces time-to-market

With its emphasis on problem-solving and finding viable solutions, Design Thinking creates a more efficient workflow. It significantly reduces the amount of time spent on design and development, seeing as much as a 75% reduction in design and development time.

#3 Cost savings and a great ROI

Getting successful products to market faster ultimately saves the business money. Design Thinking has been proven to yield a significant return on investment, achieving a calculated ROI of more than 300%; it consistently cuts costs, reduces risks and ultimately increases profitability.

#4 Can be applied company-wide

Design Thinking leverages group thinking and encourages cross-team collaboration. What’s more, it can be applied to virtually any team in any industry.

The Takeaway

In essence, Design Thinking relies on the human ability to be intuitive, to recognize patterns, and to construct ideas that are emotionally meaningful as well as functional. It’s process is iterative, flexible and focused on collaboration between designers and users, with an emphasis on bringing ideas to life based on how real users think, feel and behave.

Try out the Design Thinking canvas for your idea on Pitchspot!

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