Design Thinking is not a verb

What is Design Thinking?

Design Thinking is defined as a methodology for understanding and solving human centered problems.

These problems can include broad problems like poverty, hunger, access to technology as well as narrow problems like connecting a driver of a car with a person that needs a ride or aligning a team around a problem or solution.

The actions happening in all of these are understanding, solving, connecting, aligning. Design Thinking is the lens in which all of these actions can happen in order to focus on the human at the end. Design Thinking is the noun or adjective in the sentence.

What Design Thinking is not?

Design Thinking is not the action.

Not: “Let’s design think this project”

Instead: “Let’s apply Design Thinking to understand the problem our users are experiencing in this project.”

Not: “Get the team to come design think this product.”

Instead: “Get the team to conduct a Design Thinking workshop to identify the problems with this product and generate ideas to solve them.”

Design Thinking is not a check box activity, is not a one-size-fits-all exercise, is not limited to something that only designers can do and it is not a tool to force a particular agenda. (You can read more about what Design Thinking is not in this previous post).

Using Design Thinking as a filter

The true potential of Design Thinking is its collaborative force of bringing the disciplines together to create a holistic vision. The Design Thinker makes empathy for business needs part of a broader context together with human needs and desires.

Design Thinking doesn’t try to replace business or technology needs. Design Thinking shifts the focus from a pure technical solution to a human solution. It puts understanding context and continuous engagement with humans at the center — for determining what problem to solve, what metrics drive success, and what business will emerge from solving the human problem.

Interdisciplinary teams have different points of view and are encouraged to disagree as long as they are using this disagreement to help get to the right solution for the user. The Design Thinking filter accelerates decision making through iterative experimenting, exposes flaws through testing and strengthens alignment for all stakeholders. It brings this alignment to the business while keeping the users’ needs at the forefront. Design Thinking has to be understood correctly, applied accordingly, and measured effectively in order for organizations to see it’s value as essential to thriving organizational change and an improved experience for all.

Don’t use Design Thinking as a verb. Be a Design Thinking guru and use Design Thinking as a filter. (See what I did there?)