__

What is Design Thinking?

Design Thinking for Business

There is no single definition
Design thinking is a process and an approach.
There are possibly conflicting schools of thought:
• Design is primarily concerned with idea generation,
visualisation and prototyping – eg, Christopher Alexander:
“the work of designers is to give form to things”;
• Design is about making change happen – e.g. Herbert
Simon: “Everyone designs who devises courses of action
aimed at changing existing situations into preferred ones”
• Design lead innovation involves generating both concepts
and knowledge, resulting in change to future situations (Lucy
Kimball)

Why does it matter? If we’re going to talk to managers about

design thinking, we need to be clear on what designing is.
__
“The opportunities for innovation are
shaped by how and why we begin” –
Lucy Kimball.

Design Thinking is an approach to

solving complex problems /
innovating in uncertain times. It’s not
going to be an appropriate approach
in all circumstances – and may not be
the only approach even when it is
appropriate.
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“A decision attitude … assumes it is
easy to come up with alternatives to
consider, but difficult to choose among
them … the design attitude towards
problem solving, in contrast, assumes
that it is difficult to design a good
alternative, but once you have
developed a good one, the decision
about which alternative to select
becomes trivial.”

Richard Boland and Fred Collopy, “Design Matters for Management,” in Managing
as Designing, eds. Richard Boland and Fred Collopy (Stanford, CA: Stanford
University Press, 2004), 4.
__

It’s about designing

the right thing –
rather than getting
the design right.
Bringing creative
and critical
thinking
together!
Darden Business School Model

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British Design Council: Double
Diamond
Stanford d-School / IDEO model
Google Sprints
What are the most common process tools of design
thinking?
The four questions