Design Thinking — Why, How, Win!

Once you’ve established the need, it’s easier to succeed.

Design thinking, now widely taught at schools such as Harvard, Stanford and MIT, is increasingly adopted by constructive companies such as Google and Apple because its advantages are easy to accept as higher value ideas and more accurate decision making. What isn’t as easily accepted or readily embraced is how to put the theory to practice in your everyday approach to work and life.

What is Design Thinking?

Design thinking is a systematic approach to creativity. Creativity is constructive and progressive, unrestrained it’s unlimited. Its boundless nature needs the control of logic much like a garden needs a gardener, if value is to be extracted. Logic on its own is limited. It confines us to what we already know. If such boundaries are to expand then constructive creativity is critical.

Design thinking seeks balance by combining a critical and creative cognitive approach to derive progressive direction. Originally identified as practical methodology for evolving ideas, namely product designs, the benefits of design thinking when problem solving or difficult decision-making, particularly when collaborating, far outweigh other, more embedded, lower-order thinking methods.

Designing Design Thinking.

I studied industrial design at Loughborough University on the cusp of marker pens and ground chalk becoming pixels and vector coordinates. We were the first end-of-year degree show to present computer-generated images as representations of our designs. Vividly, I remember the panic of approaching deadlines as I sat, seemingly stuck at three o’clock in the morning, waiting for a screen to render on a computer with a 32MB hard drive!

We studied the ‘design cycle’ intently in those days, in thick blue books we carried around like weightlifters. I’ve since witnessed over and over, how the design cycle pans out in practical terms; in product development, strategy development, business development and personal growth.

The Design Cycle — as photographed from my old copy of the ‘blue brick’, published in 1990 and written by professors of the day; Norman, Riley, Urry and Whittaker — has since evolved.

Above, the cyclic model shows evaluation, investigation, ideas, synthesis, manufacture and evaluation again, as reoccurring activities in the process of product development. The innovation spiral shows the cycle escalating as innovating improves an overall design. In practice, we start with a problem, a question or a desire to improve a situation (the brief). We evaluate and investigate this to broaden perspective, deepen insight and develop greater understanding. This knowledge enables the better generation of higher value ideas in answer to a better specified problem or question. Synthesis seeks to make sense of isolated or abstract ideas, in their context and as components connect to the whole. Manufacture is commitment to make concepts concrete. When sketching ideas, we can easily explore alternative options. At the point of manufacture, ideas are solidified as thoughts become things. Consequently, the physical nature of a ‘thing’ makes it much harder and certainly a lot more expensive to change. Thoughts are mailable and subject to sudden change, much like the weather. Things however, are set in stone. Inevitably, changes do need to happen; stones get restacked, particularly when cracks are revealed and so, the design cycle rebegins.

More recently, design thinking has been hitting business blog headlines as the buzz for elite brains. I agree wholeheartedly but it bothers me when its application is over complicated. Everyone is capable of design thinking and knowledge how to should be more easily accessible.

It’s Not Rocket Science!

Design thinking may apply to rocket science but as a skill on its own, it’s relatively easy to acquire and even easier to put into practice. Children use design thinking often and you probably do too, possibly without realizing. Design thinking is an art and a science performed at all levels. We need greater awareness and better practice if we are to improve.

Design Thinking Defined

The institute of Design at Stanford portrays design thinking as a way to evolve thoughts and ideas, in a honeycomb diagram split into 5 phases; Empathize, Define, Ideate, Prototype and Test.

Design thinking defined by Institute of Design at Stanford

Below, the hexagons become circles. ‘Empathize’ expands as ‘Understand’ and ‘Observe’. Each phase inter-connects to suggest the need to leap ahead or step back as the process, project, product and people involved, evolve.

In this version of the design thinking process, I would switch the order of the first two phases. We begin by observing or perceiving a problem or situation and as this comes into our conscious awareness, we’re compelled to understand more about it. If ‘Observe’ is a process of objectification, distancing us from our emotional attachment to a situation, making us more rational in our reasoning, then ‘Understand’ injects empathy. In order to truly understand a situation, experience is necessary, physically and emotionally. Principally, the more we observe the better we understand and as we understand, the more we find to observe, so the two evolve in unison.

Accepting that the more we know the more we realize how little we understand, there comes a time when it is important to ‘Define’ or constrain the limits of our investigation and the mission we’re on. Any definition; your mission statement or project brief, will likely also evolve. Avoid, avoiding this action of writing definitions summarising the problem, prospect, position and people involved, for fear of being unsure or limiting your objectives too early, start somewhere and aim to improve as your insight evolves.

A fundamental principle of design thinking

90% of the mistakes we make are said to be errors of perception over mistakes made by logical thinking. If phases of Empathize, Observe and Understand aim to broaden perspective before decisions are made so mistakes are minimised, then ‘Define’ distils the situation down to a manageable and identifiable concern; the focus of concentration.

Armed with a broad perspective and a purpose designed to constrain creative thinking to a constructive cause, the process of ideating becomes richer and easier. To ‘Ideate’ is to generate ideas as potential solutions. Great ideas emerge in answer to real problems. Observing and understanding the problem expanded our insight, providing perspective to play with when generating fresh concepts. Defining our mission contracts our vision. Now, in the ideating phase, we are expanding our vision again:

Think big, think broad, be unlimited, unleash your imagination to create your ultimate wish list. Idealize and fantasise before you synergize your thoughts with reality. As with other phases, ‘Ideate’ is cyclic. As ideas stagnate, revert to more observing and understanding. As ideas overcomplicate, revert to redefining. When ideas require validating, that’s when it’s time to enter the prototype phase.

‘Prototype’ and ‘Test’ are not one-stop steps either. James Dyson built and tested over 2500 prototypes when developing his bagless vacuum cleaner — consider that. Often innovators get stuck at this stage. For fear of not prototyping ‘the perfect product’ they fail to prototype at all.

Prototyping is not about getting it right; it is about quickly working with what you’ve got to develop greater understanding. If a picture speaks 1000 words, a prototype speaks 1000 pictures. 3D imagining, VR testing and rapid prototyping technology is readily available but don’t delay if it’s not easily accessible. Adopt a ‘mend and make do’ mentality. In product development this means mock-ups with cardboard and glue. It’ll be ugly but it’ll supply insight into whether an idea has potential. In business development or personal growth prototyping may mean ‘tasting’ an alternative experience or role playing a process, testing on a small scale to minimise the risk and maximise the ability to evolve opinions constructively, towards improved conclusion and breakthrough ideas.

Prototyping and testing are physical, experiential, practical, implementable experiments designed to deliver real results upon which to base better decisions. Prototyping and testing is about learning more from multiple scenarios before committing to any one option — the best of which will expose itself in the test results. This cyclic process of exposing and eliminating, refining and redesigning, ebbing and flowing, delivers the correct decision, better than any option you would otherwise pre-conceive.

Defer Big Decisions To Exploratory Actions.

By deferring big decision and replacing them with small actions, pressure is removed from the situation. Better objective observation is made in this way because we’re less emotionally invested in any outcome. It’s easier to discard a prototype and start again when you’ve spent 10 minutes making and testing it. It’s much harder when it cost thousands and took years to create. It’s much easier to walk away from a disastrous weekend on a market-stall than leaving the 5-year lease you signed on a shop.

This process of mini, exploratory actions and deferred big decisions is a major difference between design thinking and more traditional, readily embedded thinking systems. In tech terms, it’s the agile approach versus the waterfall method. Traditionally, decisions precede action. People start by weighing up their options. This logical approach instantly limits them to what they know or perceive to understand. It bars alternative exploration and excludes other original, or yet-to-be-conceived concepts from being realized, restricting reach.

Shadowing a business owner when career planning, may steer you on a path you hadn’t considered prior to your work experience. Creating a cardboard cut-out could quickly convince you of how next to advance an idea. POP your new app and save fortunes in development, in the long run. Without the evidence or insight gained from prototyping and testing, we can only guess at how best to progress. Guesses are fraught with fears. Fears quell fresh ideas. Stress cripples creativity. By following the design thinking process, we reduce the pressure of getting it wrong or right and allow our actions to evolve as ideas improve in incremental, manageable steps towards greater goals.

‘Face the vision and faith the mission’

Design thinking is not binary. It is less about wrong or right and more about worse, better and time taken in transformation. It’s about trusting yourself to discover the most effective way to deliver the desired result. If the vision is a solution to a problem then the mission is from fears to fresh ideas or from pain to passion, purpose and profits…

Design thinking is far from straight forward. Ideas, much like individuals, rarely follow the same developmental path. Some ideas die before they’re born, others outlive their originators, many get superseded by competitors, those who do sustain success never step out of these cycles of ongoing analysis.

Know how!

• Design thinking combines critical and creative thinking skills.
• Design thinking is an art and a science applicable at all levels.
• Design thinking is cyclic, it evolves in iteration.
• Design thinking is an exploration of alternative outcomes.
• Design thinking defers big decision-making to implementable actions.
• Design thinking is constant learning and incremental improvement.
• Design thinking derives big vision direction from real results.

Design Thinking Simplified: Success Cycles

Success evolves in cycles. Our attitude dictates our approach to learning. By putting this into practice, we develop skill. With skill, a broader perspective prevails, better positioning us to re-appraise our attitude and so, the cycle evolves as success ensues.

Consider becoming a musician. Your attitude alludes to wanting to play an instrument. You may learn by watching a few quick videos. Next, you screech sounds from your selected instrument. With practice your skills develop. Are you enjoying playing? Do you want to learn more? Your next-level learning may involve hiring a tutor. You practice harder with greater knowhow, to better avail and in this way your skills evolve towards mastery; in cycles of continued growth.

Success cycles often start with pain points. The instance of agony compels a shift in attitude. The problem can no longer be tolerated and ‘change’ must happen. Conversely, the opposite of a success cycle — a cycle of doom and gloom — often starts with a point of pleasure. This conditions our attitude to delay making any changes. There’s no need to learn anything knew and so we practice not changing. We embed ourselves in existing processes and practices. We develop skills repeating the same actions, making it harder to change and stagnating our success.

Ultimately, there is no end goal or final destination. The point of perfection is an infinite illusion. It’s a mirage much like a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. Knowing this about your goals puts you in the point of power; now. Rather than striving for an absolute ‘perfect’, allow each relative outcome to be ‘per effect’ — as a direct result of the action you take — doing the best, with what you’ve got, at that point in time.

• Take stock of your situation to discover where you’re at on the success cycle. At times, we feel we’re ‘back in the same situation again’ — could you be a few evolutions in?
• What’s your attitude towards design thinking? You’ve learnt a little reading this article. It’s now time to put this to practice, if you intend to develop skill.