5 Ways Design Thinking Can Influence Best Work Design
Let’s be honest — shaping the future of work is hard. The last couple years have thrown us for a loop into a perpetual springboard phase filled with work-style trials. Here’s why design thinking is a great tool to help navigate how we do our best work.
- It’s iterative
The shake-up felt by the pandemic has taught us a key lesson: organisations need to be adaptable to prepare for and overcome periods of instability. Being adaptable means living in a constant stage of change and experimentation…and being comfortable with it. What we needed for best work design 10 months ago will not be the same 10 months from now. This means constantly looking at the processes at play and being ready to reframe or replace when necessary. The cyclical nature of design thinking helps to find the comfort in discomfort. The process thrives through learning and testing in a structured flow to ensure needs are always being met.
2. It’s inclusive
Whether it be in person, remote, or hybrid, we know a single working style doesn’t benefit everyone equally. The challenge is to create harmony where each person’s work style aligns within their organisation’s structure. As a human-centric process design thinking thrives on diversity of thought — and everyone has a perspective to bring to the table when designing the future of work. And no, this isn’t done through a single company-wide survey followed by a predetermined C-suite response. It means constructing a thoughtful process that provides stakeholders with a platform to speak, feel heard, and see concrete actions formed as a result.
3. It’s personal
There’s no one-size-fits-all model when it comes to future of work design. This may seem like a barrier, or obstacle — but it’s not. It’s an opportunity to tailor your work design to uniquely fit your organisation; the design tools stay the same, but the outcomes vary greatly due to the unique combination of people and perspectives within. Design thinking enables you to look at your organisation through a different lens, while stakeholder engagement drives you to create a work environment that reflects your purpose, mission, and culture.
4. It’s scalable
Design thinking has the capacity for a wide range of uses, from designing a single product to entire complex systems. This is due to its simplicity; design thinking relies on asking the right people the right questions, and testing until solutions and answers align. The key is to start small enough to have a workable scope that can be easily tested, before expanding to meet all areas of the problem. This is crucial for future work design in large corporations, where there can be departments, offices, and cultures spread globally. Test design thinking within a pilot department or two before easily replicating the process to the larger organisation.
5. It’s creative
All organisations have the capacity to be creative — some are just more outwardly creative than others. Creativity is an essential skill for individuals and organisations to cultivate, as it paves the way to innovation. Design thinking helps unlock that creativity by asking you to think outside the box, be open to ideas, and be unafraid of failure. These are all ingredients to a creative mindset that foster experimentation through prototyping. Something to remember while prototyping is no one knows what the best future work design looks like — it has to be discovered, tested, taken apart, and retested a number of times before arriving at what future of work design looks like to you and your people. You might as well test the limits and get creative with it — you never know what might work.
