Design Thinking is more than just a method or strategy. When we talk about design thinking, we are concerned with a special way of thinking and working. The method of design thinking is oriented towards creative and innovative professions. We are constantly looking for new ways of thinking and tools to solve complex problems. The problems are considered from the user's point of view, because Design Thinking focuses on people - as customers or employees - and their needs.
The goal of Design Thinking is to solve complex problems - problems in product development, strategic planning or adaptation to change. Success is based on 3 decisive components: 1. multidisciplinary teams 2. variable spaces and 3. the process as such. Iteration is central, ideas and developments are repeatedly questioned, rejected or revised; the process is characterized by phases of convergent and divergent thinking movements.
What is Design Thinking?
The origins go back to 1991 - the computer scientist Terry Winograd from the innovation forge IDEO is considered to be its inventor. In Germany, the Hasso Plattner Institute near Potsdam in particular has been researching and developing the concept since 2005.
By concentrating on the user, the iterative process and cooperation in multidisciplinary teams, practicable solutions can be found for all areas of life. The development process of a product is made as transparent and flexible as possible in order to avoid risks as far as possible and to be flexible when changes occur. The goal is to be able to use a developed system as quickly as possible. The teams are self-organized.
How can the method be applied?
If you want to use Design Thinking, you can orientate yourself on the process model. Since design thinking is a creative process, the model serves as a rough orientation or a kind of guide. It is quite possible and even necessary to jump back and forth to other phases.
Figure 1: Design Thinking process model
There are numerous models of the design thinking process, but typically it consists of 6 phases, as shown in Figure 1.
Understanding: At the beginning it is all about understanding the problem, the context and its history. The aim of this phase is that all team members are well informed about the problem and can establish a common question as a basis for their work.
Observing: In this step, the target group is observed comprehensively and without prejudice or, if necessary, questioned. In this way, the target group itself is to be located and its needs determined. It is important to gather as many insights as possible from the everyday life of the target group.
Defining perspectives: The findings are now summarised in a common position. For example, team members can exchange their experiences in dialogue by means of "storytelling". All information is linked and patterns are identified so that an overall picture is created that is best visualised by sketches. The aim of this phase is to establish a common level of knowledge and convergence.
Finding ideas: In this part, the transition into design takes place. Divergence is desirable in order to generate as many different ideas as possible. Brainstorming and similar methods prove helpful in the development of ideas. These should help to break old thought patterns to create completely new solutions far away from old habits.
Developing prototypes: To enable users to test and evaluate possible solutions, ideas must be implemented quickly. Prototypes", i.e. predecessor models or samples, are therefore developed for ideas with the greatest innovation potential. How this prototype is presented depends on the respective context and the creativity of the participants. For example, a prototype can be presented through role-plays, a paper model or storytelling. The key is that the idea should be understood by the other employees in order to be able to develop it further.
Testing: As soon as prototypes take a concrete form, they are tested. The target group - in most cases the customers - provide feedback, so that the prototype can be improved or may even have to be discarded. The search for optimization and alternatives then continues.
The entire process is not linear, but, as already described, iterative. It is marked by repetitions and changes between phases.
What applications are there in the area of change management or personnel development?
This approach can be used not only in software or design development for the development of practical, innovative solutions, but also in the area of personnel and organizational development.
The following practical example describes the application for a Human Resource (HR) department of a larger company. The aim of the project is to develop suitable offers for internal customers, i.e. other departments and units of the organisation.
Understanding: In order to best understand the needs of internal customers, so-called personas were created in the first phase. These are the same "customer profiles" that describe typical target customer representatives as concretely as possible. The challenges, wishes and needs of the respective persona should be named as concretely as possible, so that each of the participants of the workshop could connect very clear ideas with the respective persona.
Observing: In the second phase, a "Customer Journey" was carried out and illustrated with the aid of a sketch ("map"). In this phase, the main focus was on closely observing the world in which the typical target customer moves and what points of contact he has with the HR' learners. The typical target customers were added to this step by invitation, so that the personas and the "Customer Journey" could be adapted in direct exchange.
Defining perspectives: During the first two steps, the participants dealt strongly and very concretely with the world of their customers. In the next phase these experiences were concretized and packed into conclusions. From this point of view, the participants developed criteria for the new products to be created, e.g. training offers.
Finding ideas: In order to find the most creative solutions possible, it was important to create an appropriate atmosphere that once again made the customer's world clear. For this purpose, small role-plays were carried out, which made the target customer experienceable in different situations of his/her everyday working life. Spontaneous ideas were retrieved from this sequence. It was helpful for this phase to make the team as interdisciplinary as possible. In this case we have therefore invited colleagues who were not part of the team.
Developing prototypes: From the numerous ideas, the next step was to prioritize those which, in the opinion of the participants, offered the greatest benefits to the customers and were nevertheless easy to implement. In the end, an idea was selected as a prototype and first painted in a creative process. In a further step, a simple model was made of it, which represented an innovative product (specific "barcamp").
Testing: At the end of the two-day workshop, customers were again invited to examine the prototype and provide feedback. The feedback flowed again into the further product optimization.
Advantages in use
Design Thinking promotes not only innovation, but also speed. Because the process can start immediately because there are few guidelines and rules and prototypes are tested as soon as they take shape, Design Thinking ensures that complex problems are solved quickly. If a prototype is still in need of improvement, one can experiment further, find out strengths and weaknesses in order to finally optimize it.
In addition, the principle of design thinking is characterized by a high degree of customer proximity. The constant exchange with users is an integral part of the process. The customer is involved through discussions, testing and evaluation of the prototypes, which enables good coordination with the customer's needs.
Conclusion
Design Thinking is a practical and creative way to find solutions to problems. What is important here is a multidisciplinary team that has room to develop its ideas and is oriented towards the process. Design Thinking as a way of thinking and working promotes innovation and speed. In addition, there is an intensive exchange with customers, as people and their needs are at the centre of the process. This makes it possible to design products and services according to the needs of the users.
Did we arouse your interest? Then find out here about our workshops on Design Thinking and contact us directly if you have any questions.
Literature:
Hasso Plattner Institute: What is Design Thinking? At: https://hpi-academy.de/design-thinking/was-ist-design-thinking.html (accessed 23.10.2017)