Design Thinking Blog

Just had a very insightful meeting with Jeneanne Rae.  Jeneanne has been in the Design Thinking field since before it was called Design Thinking.  She was hired by David Kelley at IDEO to help grow the business integration part of that company as an MBA and a significant part of the growth into the company that they are today.  Since leaving IDEO, she has been working as a consultant to fortune 500 companies in the area of Service Design.

She regularly speaks at conferences and is an ongoing contributor to BusinessWeek.  She drinks dark roast coffee with both cream and sugar.

The majority of our time was focused on the best practices to involve End Users in the Service Design process.  One of the hallmarks of Design Thinking is breaking away from the “stakeholders only” mentality where insiders decide what they believe is needed, and then create and roll out the service or product. To be truly effective, the process must include regular involvement and feedback from those who will actually use the services (Users).

There are 3 key times for End Users to be involved:

1. When you are doing your initial research into the “problem” that you are solving (your service proposition)
2. When you are prototyping your services – BEFORE you implement
3. Immediately after implementation – to make sure that you are actually solving the problem.

Let’s go deeper into each of those. Read the rest of this entry »

Overview of Site: This is just as it says..

Thoughts on this Site: Great Idea.  And some really good creative leadership thoughts that are presented.

Thoughts on this site:

http://thirtyconversationsondesign.com/

Design Thinking and Innovation

Overview of Post: This is another overview of Design Thinking with one exception:  it goes into details of the process and gives other resources.

Thoughts on this Post: I like this.  When people ask me for a quick handout on Design Thinking, this may become my “go to” article.  Thanks Kendall!

Original Post HERE at FilterTalent.com by Kendall Hopwood

We’re not talking pixels or picas; we’re talking process.

I suppose tough economic times often divide people into two camps: those who want to play it safe and follow the straight and narrow road, and those who see crisis as a time for ideation and innovation.

A methodology for idea-generating, design thinking characterizes the latter group (whether they’re cognizant of it or not). And whether it’s your job hunt, your business strategy, or global warming you want to change, shifting your process—or your entire organization’s—towards  design thinking is a means of facilitating change and discovering new ideas.

Not a Degree, a Methodology

David Kelley, founder and chairman of IDEO and the man who coined the term “design thinking,” describes design thinkers as people who have “this creative confidence that, when given a difficult problem, we have a methodology that enables us to come up with a solution that nobody has before.”

Accordingly, the implications of design thinking aren’t contained in the arena of aesthetics alone. Design thinking applies to marketing and sales, philanthropy, conservation efforts, education, business, and everything in between.

Some Defining Characteristics of Design Thinking

Some people think creativity is purely a gift, a moment of divine inspiration. The notion of design thinking, however, implies that creativity and innovation can be fostered through a process, and as Linda Tischler says in her article on David Kelley, it’s a process not unlike the scientific method.

So what are some characteristics of design thinking, and how can it be applied to your creative vision, business strategy, or organizational processes? Read the rest of this entry »

Overview of Article: This is a recap of a conversation about what ‘Design Thinking” is supposed to do for a business and where it came from.

Thoughts on this Article: I like the thought process that is represented here.  It reflects a positive view of changing the way things are done and a collaborative approach to solving business challenges.  I agree that it makes sense to pick the best from various fields and integrate those things.  That is how we have some of the best things we have (including dogs).

Original Post HERE at EmergingFuturesLab.com

This is an attempt at articulating the implications of using design thinking as an approach to innovation. It emerged from a conversation this afternoon at the Aalto Design Factory with Mikko Koskinen and Lotta Hassi.

Overview of Article: Sharon Begley of Newsweek.com looks into the claim that simply do a 30 second eye movement exercise can make you more creative.

Thoughts on this article: Where to begin…I found this to be interesting based on the core understanding that Design Thinking utilizes both left and right brain approaches to create and solve.  usually, we are talking about different people with each of these traits, not individuals that have the ability to “shift” between the two.  However, there are still times that I work with a group that could use a boost of creativity in their thoughts…so maybe I will give this a try!

Original Article HERE at NewsWeek.com

When Is a Brick Not a Brick?

What can a brick be used for? Well, there’s building a house, breaking a window, holding down a pile of papers on a windy day, squashing a bug, paving a driveway, building a wall, as the legs of a small table … Now take a break and shift your eyes from left to right and back again for 30 seconds.

If psychologist Elizabeth Shobe of Richard Stockton College of New Jersey and her colleagues are right, that ocular exercise spurred creative thinking, enabling you to come up with yet more uses for a brick (perhaps putting in the toilet tank to reduce water usage? how about as a mock coffin at a Barbie funeral?). (Click here to follow Sharon Begley).

There is no shortage of self-appointed experts on creativity (a quick search for ways to increase it turns up “clear your workspace” and “act on your instincts“). The snake-oil approaches are unfortunate, because there is pretty decent neuroscientific research on the brain basis for creativity, as I wrote about a few years back. Above all, the studies show that creativity is not just a personality trait (and thus hard to change) but also a trainable skill. Read the rest of this entry »

Overview of Post: Helene Cahen gives a real world look at using Design Thinking in her consulting business, and breaks it down into three main areas of focus.

Thoughts on Post: I always like to see how people are able to apply the Design Thinking concepts and principles to their work.  Helene gives a good breakdown of the process, but also show the continued “grayness” of defining the difference of Design Thinking and Human Centered Design and User Experience.

Original Post at Creative Problem Solving Institute website

Posted by: Helene Cahen

Design Thinking is best defined as applying the principles and mind-sets used by designers and architects, in other fields that require innovation. Non-designers can learn to use and apply the mind-sets and process to those challenges that require innovation. Design Thinking presents a creative problem solving approach that is somewhat similar to CPS, but focuses on areas that CPS does not fully articulate given its origin in the design world. In the past couple of years, I have integrated design thinking not only into my consulting business practice (I do training and facilitation around innovation) but also as a different way of thinking. Here are the three mind-sets that have made the deepest impact for me. Read the rest of this entry »