Design Thinking is a problem-solving methodology that any team or organisation can use to increase the value of their products, services and processes.
The three important things to know about Design Thinking are:
1: it is consumer/ customer centric. At its heart the process is motivated by solving consumer needs using deep qualitative research to identify what is really important. Teams use prototypes and feedback to iteratively ideate and develop solutions. The consumer voice has many layers, including their deep emotional needs, which can be addressed through subtle design elements. This kind of holistic design creates products and services that have greater meaning leading to more loyalty and stronger competitive advantage.
2: It makes innovation more productive. Because the process is iterative and based on qualitative inputs, and rough prototypes it allows teams to explore lots of ideas, and fail fast and cheap (move forward only with ideas that have a real chance of success). If you’ve ever been part of a project that failed in the market you know how expensive it is – much better to put time and effort into getting it right at the front end. Most innovation happens at the boundaries between fields of expertise, so because this is a multifunctional process it naturally throws up exciting new ways to solve key consumer of business needs. It’s amazing how a team of diverse thinkers can create very elegant solutions by working together.
3: It helps drive successful change: key stakeholders, and all multifunctional partners are invested in the process, so they are involved in creating any change that is required for successfully addressing the business issue. By being part of the early ideation, stakeholders like manufacturing or finance can raise concerns and help address killer issues before critical downstream milestones. Moreover, as the projects moves through the stages to implementation, everyone knows how to best bring it to life in a timely and cost effective way so that the original design intent is preserved or enhanced.
Design Thinking can be used to develop consumer solutions, organisational change or new processes. It works especially well when the problem is a little fuzzy or ill defined, because it helps you reframe the issue and bring clarity.
If you’ve got a business challenge that Design Thinking could help with please get in touch.
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