Chapter 5

Design thinking and organizations

- How to introduce design thinking into your organization

From Apple to Google, Samsung to IBM, some of the world’s top brands are using design thinking to drive innovation and

results. While more and more organizations are recognizing the power of design thinking, it naturally raises the question: how

can you best introduce this mindset into a new environment?

- Here are a few ways to champion design thinking in your company:

1. Start small

Design thinking isn’t something you can magically embed across your company in an afternoon. It will take time to first teach

others about the mindset and then practice executing each of the five phases. So start small. Create small experiments that allow

your team to practice gathering data, testing frequently, and iterating quickly. Perhaps you set aside time each week to work on

these skills, or start with a small part of your business and grow over time.

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2. Identify early adopters and evangelists

As with the introduction of any new process or skill, there will always be people who naturally excel from the beginning. Some

people may have had prior experience with design thinking or are especially motivated to take the time to learn. Make sure to

leverage these early adopters to create a network of supporters. These employees can act as evangelists for design thinking,

championing the concept in meetings and projects across departments, and also helping to coach other employees along the way.

3. Avoid silos by department or team

Design thinking is multi-disciplinary and co-creative. It works best when it includes people who bring different perspectives and

expertise to the table. Whether you’re holding a workshop to teach your organization about design thinking or starting off with a

small project to gain hands-on experience, make sure your design groups include people from across departments and

disciplines.

4. Understand that design thinking is a fluid process

Design thinking is non-linear. The five phases don’t have to follow a specific order and they can occur in parallel. When

introducing design thinking in the early stages, don’t try to apply the end-to-end process, from empathy to test, to every problem.

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 - Design-thinking leaders see the world in terms of problems and products

Design thinking is a way of thinking based on cognitive processes typically employed by designers. Tim Brown of IDEO* listed

the following as characteristics of a design thinker: empathy, integrative thinking, optimism, experimentalism, and collaboration.

*IDEO was formed in 1991 by David Kelley. IDEO is a design and consulting firm with offices in the U.S., England, Germany,

Japan, and China.

Characteristics of a design-thinking leader

1- Sees the world in terms of problems and products. It is adopts a broad view of products that includes information,

artifacts, activities, services, systems, and environments. All of these can be designed in order to solve specific

problems. All of these entities are within the scope of practice of leaders.

2- Views self as product. A leader viewing themselves as a product means adopting a designerly approach to their own

attitude, behavior, and outlook. Design-thinking leaders iterate on versions of themselves that will lead to exceptional

team performance.

3- Rigorously cultivates the abilities of a designer—especially empathy and optimism. Tim Brown did an excellent job

of identifying the traits of a design thinker, many of which have direct correlations to the tenets outlined in the theory of

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 transformational leadership. Once again, these include: empathy, integrative thinking, optimism, experimentalism and

collaboration.

- Design thinking leaders know how to act as a catalyst for creativity

1. Deeply understands the process of creative problem solving and knows how to act as a catalyst for

creativity. Within the creative process, leaders should seek to be conduits, provocateurs, shepherds, and motivators.

2. Collaborates and communicates outside of PowerPoint. Design-thinking leaders think of new ways to engage groups,

drawing upon methods from books like Game storming and Thinkertoys.

3. Embraces ambiguity and seeks opportunity to use models and other forms of making to tame chaos and create

order. It’s not a new concept that leaders should embrace ambiguity and chaos,[10] but doing this with a design attitude

empowers leaders to tame this through designerly activities like modeling, sketching, and storytelling.

4. Prototypes visions, not just products. Prototypes are typically used to test out products in various stages of fidelity in

order to get meaningful feedback from stakeholders. Design-thinking leaders should look for ways to prototype and test

out different visions for their organization. This could include things like role-playing, or writing magazine articles

about the future success of the company. There are always opportunities to “prototype” a more desirable future.

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 - Design-thinking leaders prototype visions, not just products

Design thinking is undoubtedly emerging as a hot topic, gaining wider awareness and adoption. These practical qualities of a

design-thinking-focused leader will hopefully help you apply this approach in your discipline and practice of leadership.

Ensure that design thinking is applied in a way that makes the most sense for your problem. For example, you may start with

testing and find that it creates new ideas for your project.

- Identify how you will measure success

How will you measure and communicate the success of design thinking? When you’re spending so much time and effort to

introduce the process to your team, make sure you have a way to track progress. You could track the number of projects that

apply design thinking. Or, conduct surveys to measure the impact that design thinking has on employee satisfaction.

- Examples of design thinking success

Product and service design are the most obvious contexts to benefit from design thinking. However, the design thinking

framework can be used to tackle all kinds of challenges beyond the realm of design!

Design thinking is increasingly being integrated into business as a way to foster innovation and teamwork. IBM developed

their Enterprise Design Thinking frame work in order to “help multidisciplinary teams align around the real needs of their
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users,” claiming that businesses who use the framework are twice as quick to get their products to market, 75% more efficient

in terms of teamwork, and enjoy a 300% return on investment.

Insurance firm Mass Mutual used a design thinking approach to tackle the challenge of getting young adults to purchase life

insurance. In partnership with IDEO, they conducted extensive user research over the course of two years. Based on what they

learned, they then embarked on a further two years of prototyping and testing. The end result was Society of Grownups, a suite

of digital tools that help to educate young people to make smart financial choices.

Here at Career Foundry, we not only teach design thinking as part of our UX Design Course, but we also incorporate it in the
way we work and make decisions. The majority of our users are adult learners who are juggling online study with full-time
work, and so one of the biggest challenges they face is time management. Based on the design thinking framework, we
conducted extensive user research, including an in-house time management workshop with real students. With these new
insights, we redesigned certain aspects of our e-learning dashboard—such as how project milestones are displayed, for
example TRAVELER’S JOURNEY

During the analysis of the information obtained by research, we have observed some key stages inherent to the process of air
travel. Based on this, we have illustrated the Traveler’s Itinerary using infographics, from the moment before the actual tri p, in
the planning stage, up until the moment of departure at the airport.
In the Itinerary, at each of its stages, we have also arranged the challenges to be considered during the Ideation phase.

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