Thinking Space

In his book ‘Change By Design’, Tim Brown advises the need of design thinking specially in today’s technology driven world.As technology becomes more and more complex applying design thinking principles to your product or service will be key differentiator.

A balanced approach which not only looks into technology and analytics but considers the factors of Human-centred, intuitive and emotional meaning will be the key.

Some of the key take aways (with my thoughts applied) below

• Design thinking focuses the need of innovation which spans across three spaces Inspiration, Ideation and Implementation.Any innovation initiative is constrained by either the feasibility(what’s possible), viability(supports the business model) and desirability(what people need). A culture of Innovation is foundation to innovation, a culture that believes that it is better to ask forgiveness afterwards rather than permission before, that rewards people for success but gives them permission to fail.

          But always remember, “Innovation is a good idea executed well” – Unfortunately too             much emphasis is given on first part.

• Don’t just depend upon focus groups or market research they will only find out incremental improvements not breakthrough innovations.As Henry Ford once said “if I’d asked my customers what they wanted, they’d have said ‘a faster horse.’”

• Three elements of any successful design program are
  • insight (learning from the lives of others)
  • observation(watching what people don’t do, listening to what they don’t say) an
  • Empathy.
• Give an equal importance to divergent thinking as convergent thinking in the early phase of a design project.Linus Pauling(American Chemist, winner of two Nobel prizes) once said “To have a good idea, you must first have lots of ideas”.

• Once an idea is selected spread the idea with storytelling. As someone said “Pills don’t work if people don’t take them!”-You need a story around them.

In the conclusion, just remember

Good design thinkers observe. Great design thinkers observe the ordinary.

Make it a rule that at least once a day you will stop and think about an ordinary situation.