Design Thinking Blog

Recently, there has been a flurry of activity around some new terms, Design thinking and Design leadership. I think they are interesting terms, and describe some new directions for design. Design thinking, suggests to me, that designers have a different way of thinking – visual, abductive etc, which means that they have relevance outside of the product sphere (meaning also services).

Design leadership means two things to me. One is to achieve a leading position in the market through the strategic use of design (Apple comes to mind here… again). The second is to use design thinking in your role as a leader – that is – using design qualities in your leadership role. These are both exciting terms and a useful development from the design management term that has been around for quite some time. Read the rest of this entry »

Overview: This addresses the ongoing conversation about the term “Design Thinking”

Thoughts: In all honesty, it really doesn’t matter, does it?  If people get the concept, and are able to be more effective in their processes, then who cares what it is called?  I do think the links in this post are worth following .

Original Post HERE at Peter Merholz site

I have a… complicated relationship with the phrase “design thinking”. Over 4 years ago, I wrote a post, “The Dark Side of Design Thinking” that looked at the shortcomings of the designer’s perspective, and even earlier, lamented how the phrase “design thinking” was being used to mean “thinking that I like,” and not really about design.

But then I also co-wrote a book that addresses the value of design approaches (and I’ve been known, in person, to say that it’s a book about “design thinking” that never uses the phrase “design thinking”).

I most recently blogged on Harvard Business about “Why Design Thinking Won’t Save You”, because I find myself, again, fed up with how people use this phrase in such a way that it’s essentially meaningless, and it seems to serve little more than helping sell design firms trying to be more strategic, or sell business magazines in desperate need of appearing hip.

The problem I faced in that post is that there’s no good alternative term for the kind of thinking I promote, which is a wildly multi-disciplinary approach. Dev tried with “hybrid thinking”, but I found that phrase too limiting. I considered “integrated thinking,” but it’s too vague, and too similar to Roger Martin’s integrative thinking. Perhaps the best term I found was “post-disciplinary,” ironically enough from IDEO’s Jane Fulton Suri (ironic because the rise of the phrase “design thinking” is pretty much all due to IDEO).

Something I don’t address in my post, but where I think there’s a real opportunity for exploration, is to identify how this wildly multi-disciplinary thinking actually does contribute to organizational success in the 21st century.

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.

5 Ways Design Thinking Can Raise the Collective IQ of Your Business

Original Article HERE at Fast Company

BY Michael Cannell

Business executives love stability and the cold imperatives of logic. Ambiguity gives them fits. Designers, by contrast, can’t abide the status quo. “That tension never goes away between inventing the new and preserving the old,” Sam Lucente, vice president of design for Hewlett-Packard, said yesterday at a panel discussion conducted by the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum during its National Design Week. “It’s like navigating no man’s land,” he said.

The panel, entitled “The Business of Design,” addressed ways to integrate designers, and design thinking, into organizations that usually resist change. Here are some of their observations:

The most effective designers know instinctually how to navigate bureaucracies. They handle matters “often in subversive ways,” Lucente said. “They quietly figure out how to end run the system and get things done. They know how to work it.”

Read the rest of this entry »

Original Post and Comments HERE at Archis.org

Thinking through Design Thinking

IDEO /Tim Brown, Bruce Nussbaum and Stanford d.school call it Design Thinking.

Michael Speaks, Michael Shamiyeh, Bruce Mau talk about Design Intelligence,

Nigel Cross writes about Designerly ways of knowing (one of the best books i’ve read so far on design thinking).

All these ideas deal with design as process rather than object. They all articulate and confirm the idea that there is a ’specific way of thinking that is unique to design’ and ‘that this way of thinking is applicable on any problem’ It is a way of seeing, understanding and making the world, and the ‘design way’ is a universal way, there is no problem that can not be solved, … or so it seems (this is one of the claims of Bruce Mau’s Massive change exhibit and book anyway).

Although one has to acknowledge a certain naivety behind this idea, it is non the less very appealing, especially for a designer, or well … an architect like myself.

Read the rest of this entry »

Overview of Post: Brian Matt jumps in from a designers perspective on the issues that arise with explaining what design, much less Design Thinking actually is…

Thoughts on this Post: I like this style of looking at the problem.  Right now, there is a huge amount of ambiguity as Design Thinking gets more press, and the lines between design and Design Thinking are not understood.

Original Post HERE at dmi.org

What the Hell Have We Done to Design?

(Really Thinking about Design Thinking)

By Brian Matt, Founder & CEO, Altitude, Inc.

Hey, design-types, picture this…

I stroll into the neighborhood party with a swell bottle of wine in one hand and my lovely wife’s arm in the other. Three steps into the house, she peels off to greet her friends and I head for the kitchen to drop off the vino. I am immediately cut off by a doughy-faced but pleasant sort of fellow wearing black pants and a black mock turtleneck in June.

John Public: “Hi. I’ve been waiting for you to arrive. Jill said that you’re a designer.”
Me: “Yes, that’s right. I am a designer.”
John Public: “Were you ever on Project Runway? My wife loves that show.” Read the rest of this entry »

Overview of Post: This is a blog entry from Dan Saffer a designer in the San Francisco CA area on what he believes are the distinctives of Design Thinking.

Thoughts on this Post:  This makes a lot of sense from the designers point of view, but the things that Dan says are “givens” are not “givens” to non-designers.  As this field continues to define itself, it is important to remember that a large percentage of the people who are getting interested in Design Thinking are not familiar with any of the terms and methods that designers use. [ Again that is one of the primary purposes of the dTblog!]

Thinking About Design Thinking

Probably the phrase in design circles I’m hearing the most these days is “design thinking.” As in, “We need to bring some design thinking to this project.” Or “What sets designers apart is their design thinking.” It’s even on the main image of Stanford’s new d school website. Interestingly, I haven’t seen much about what “design thinking” really is though.

I’ve heard it used in any number of ways, some of which are vague enough and/or general enough so that they are insulting to other professions. Are we saying other disciplines aren’t creative or aren’t problem-solvers? I didn’t really become a designer until I was 30 years old: does this mean I was thinking differently before then? Read the rest of this entry »

In reading business magazines and new book titles, it seems that the world is getting curious as to what Design Thinking is all about – or maybe wondering if there is money to “found” in this new concept.

For those of us who teach and practice Design Thinking, there is still a huge debate over the “true” definition and whether the process that is used should even be called “Design Thinking”. Our internal debate can be challenging at times.

What we do agree upon is that the single most significant contribution of Design Thinking is that it offers  a holistic  approach to solving problems/creating products.  “Holistic” in that it is not self limiting – it does not focus one “type of knowledge” or “school of thought” to find possible solutions. Read the rest of this entry »

Overview of Interview: (from WNYC) Warren Berger, shares the principles of design that can improve the way we think, work, and live. His book Glimmer: How You Can Transform Your Life, and Maybe Even the World shows how we can all apply the skills designers use to solve problems and spur innovation.

Thoughts on this Interview: Great interview! Berger does a really great job explaining how Design and Design Thinking are related but different and puts it in terms that non-designers can understand.

Overview of Video: Roger Martin, dean of the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto, talks with BusinessWeek about the design approach to solving problems and how to apply it to recent events, including the financial crisis.
Thoughts on this Video: Martins’ definition of Design Thinking hit me as odd initially, by made more sense as the interview progressed.  I don’t always think Design Thinking has to create a “model”.  However, his definition may be more suited to the business world than some others.