ING WBAA — A Design Led Tribe
How do we apply Design Thinking Innovation in business?
Most people think of design as the expertise that makes an application, project, or idea look appealing, using catchy graphics and visualizations. Another common assumption is that design is mainly about enhancing users’ experience. Both assumptions are correct since design indeed aims at prettifying projects and definitely aims at happy users.
However, in today’s business, design goes far beyond this narrow spectrum, forming a new way of ‘thinking and doing’ and redefining innovation and organizational culture as we know it. We, at ING WBAA, embrace design at our core business and culture, following a design thinking mindset, while adjusting it to our data-driven identity.
In this article, we are going to explain what design means to us and how it’s applied in our daily business, gaining insights from Harm Jan Luth — Design Lead and Frank Derks — Global Tribe Lead at ING WBAA.
Design-led Innovation
During the current decade, there has been a hype about innovation and the ways organizations try to reach a competitive innovation advantage. Innovation is generally defined by the introduction of something new or as Theresa Amabile, Harvard Professor of BA put it: “the successful implementation of creative ideas within an organization.”
However, innovation in traditional business came more with a mathematical approach and was perceived as a driver for economic growth and ownership of resources while focused on solving business problems.
This is where design came in to redefine and revamp the term innovation. Design-led innovation is focusing on solving problems but also on creating better solutions and providing users with what they actually need. In this case, design works as an innovation accelerator incorporating empathy and understanding — the most distinguishing aspects of design thinking.
Another outstanding characteristic of design is that there is no fixed formula for its application in practice. Each business perceives and treats design differently, adjusting it to its core culture and brand identity.
At ING WBAA we have a dedicated design team with Harm Jan Luth on the lead. Harm Jan explains what design means to him:
“Design is incredibly versatile! There are many different ways you can look at it and that’s what I love about it. I find Thomas J. Watson Jr. definition of design as the most relevant for today’s business: “Good design is good business”. Adding on that, design to me is even a way of running a business. It’s the way you build your product, it’s the story your brand tells, it’s how to best work with people and understand them”.
Frank Derks — Global Tribe Lead WBAA adds on his own perception of design:
“To me, design thinking and the importance of design is getting as close to the users of the product as possible, with no layers or interfaces or time delays in between. It’s about making sure you thoroughly understand users’ behaviors and needs while using advanced techniques to take out all kinds of human biases. Design helps to progress and increase investments based on a solid understanding of the problems and needs of your users”.
A business that wants to be led by design
Diving a bit deeper into what it means and what it takes for a business to be led by design. Being a design-driven business is about a state of mind, how you approach problems, and your company’s culture.
Having a design state of mind means incorporating empathy and understanding in order to appreciate your goal and work towards it. It means considering the impact of a decision and being prepared for any consequences that might arise. Harm Jan said:
“ Design is mostly about the power of understanding, understanding what makes a good product, understanding how to write a great story, understanding how to engage your employees with your story. Last but not least, understanding more about yourself and your own beliefs, because your beliefs are what fuels your organisation or company”.
Designers work up theories and test several assumptions thoroughly to help generate ideas and options not previously considered. In a nutshell, a designer is required to use empathetic and calculated reasoning to find tangible solutions. Applying this manner of thinking to all areas of business is what design-led innovation is about.
“I believe there are two versions of innovation; doing something better than the rest or doing something that nobody has done before. The second one is extremely challenging but that also means higher satisfaction with your work. That’s why I like working at WBAA; we have the chance to drastically improve and change current processes to build better products; but we also have everything at hand to create things nobody has done before; this mix makes it very exciting and satisfying for me” — Harm Jan
In a data-driven era, you need to support your business decisions with data, and to do that, you need to be able to make sense of this data. Design is an accelerator towards this direction using abductive reasoning to quickly investigate solutions based on the observations and the insights from data. This approach allows fast prototyping, with multiple iterations and tolerance to failure, thus reduces waste of resources while helping to reach the optimal solution for your end-users.
Another big advantage of design is that is measurable and from there a strategic tool to improve your business. Design metrics are aligned with business metrics to bring back the desired results with the minimum risk.
“The advantage of design for big corporates is that you can focus on the end-user — what is broadly called User Experience (UX). Making sure a corporate makes the right decisions and no big investments without data-driven proof points. Approaching solutions with low fidelity prototypes, and with people that combine interpersonal, technical and graphic design skills means one step closer to a successful product”. — Frank
At ING WBAA we embrace the core values of design.
- This starts with having a strong design squad in our tribe. Each of our product teams has independent product designers and design researchers that work as part of a multi-disciplinary group including product management and technical roles. The goal is to collaborate towards the big hairy audacious goals of each product and make sure every aspect of it is desirable by its users.
“Every product team is very focussed on end users and understands what problem they are solving. This trickles down into many other dimensions of the tribe; costs going down, the motivation of people going up, and happy users. In 2021 we aim to have the data to support these statements in a more solid way.
Another milestone is that all WBAA products offer a high aesthetic experience through heavily-tested and sleek modern user interfaces which is just one part of ‘design’, but the most visible one. This clearly was the case for Katana labs, but also changes the dynamic around DAP, Holmes and other of our projects” — Frank
2. We empathize with our users and stakeholders. Empathy is critical to understand the real needs and expectations of your end-users and from there be able to deliver the right product. With user research and continuous observation, we are trying to not only listen but also grasp what the end-user is feeling.
3. We embrace diversity. Design thrives within the right culture and we at WBAA, foster a workplace culture where everyone can bring their “whole” self to work and be treated with empathy and equality. This allows the cross-fertilization of diverse ideas, empowering creativity and widening the range of applicable solutions.
4. We are not afraid to fail often and fast. To be innovative you need to be bold, experiment often, and not afraid of failing. The sooner you identify the errors in the product development process, the lower the costs for your business. On top of that, each failure comes with great learnings that can fertilize your next big idea!
5. We think out of the box. At the base of product development, design thinking requires thinking of a problem from the inside out, meaning from the user’s perspective. We are thinking out of the box by being open to explore new perspectives and do things differently. By listening and supporting new ideas — not settling with the status quo of the common problem-solving methods but continuously trying to go beyond it until we meet our users’ needs. This mindset helps us gain more knowledge and move one step further in our value areas while leveraging the countless opportunities artificial intelligence (AI) offers.
“The design-driven approach mixed with an innovation mindset reflected on the limitless possibilities of AI makes me believe that everything is possible and we’re just scratching the surface of what is possible.
We’re really trying to understand Anti Money Laundering behaviour and work on new ways to deal with this behaviour. The AML world is an exciting and very dynamic world, so the need for creativity and the right approach is strong.
With our product Intellichain we’re working on a strong foundation for Supply Chain analysis and there are many many perspectives for this to take into account; financial health; sustainability; media; research and relations”.
6. We align design metrics with our OKR’s (Objectives & Key Results). Successful design is measurable and we associate it with our business metrics. At the beginning of every one of our projects, design helps decide what metrics are suitable to measure its success through every stage of the product development process. This helps every product team keep track of their progress until they reach their end goal. An example is the crucial role of Design Research in one of our anchor products, the Data Analytics Platform (DAP). The UX researcher conducts in-depth research via interviews with the platform’s users to identify their needs, pain points, and areas of improvement. This way we know what their “search” patterns are or what they view as relevant in DAP, and we adjust the product accordingly to make it the best fit to their needs.
Design is at the core of ING WBAA business, leading our way of thinking and doing. Design thinking fosters cross-disciplinary pollination and empowers people to express themselves, contribute their ideas, and experiment without judgment by eliminating hierarchical boundaries. What is more, design helps us accelerate the adoption of AI, foster commitment to our goals, and pivot quickly in an ever-changing market landscape.
For even more insights into the meaning and the ways we apply Design principles in our tribe, listen to Harm Jan and Frank’s podcast.
