DESIGN THINKING

Dr Atul Mathur
Associate Professor
IIMT College
Greater Noida
 UNIT – 01

Innovation & Creativity

 Innovation,
Innovation, as a concept, refers to the process that an individual or
organization undertakes to conceptualize brand new products,
processes, and ideas, or to approach existing products, processes,
and ideas in new ways. In the world of business, there are many
different types of innovation that a company might pursue.
According to McKinsey, executives say that their future success is
dependent on innovation. Although innovation may sound like a
buzzword for some, there are many reasons why companies put a
lot of emphasis on it.
In addition to the fact that innovation allows organizations to stay
relevant in the competitive market, it also plays an important role
in
economic growth. The ability to resolve critical problems depends
on new innovations and especially developing countries need
it more than ever.
 What is innovation and why do we need it?
Innovation, by, definition is the introduction of something new.
Without innovation, there isn’t anything new, and without
anything new, there will be no progress. If an organization isn’t
making any progress, it simply cannot stay relevant in the
competitive market.
Because organizations are often working with other individual
organizations, it can sometimes be challenging to understand the
impacts of innovation on our society at large. There is, however, a
lot more to innovation than just firms looking to achieve
competitive advantage.
innovation really is the core reason for modern existence.
Although innovation can have some undesirable consequences,
change is inevitable and in most cases, innovation creates positive
change.
 Defining Creativity
Creativity is the act of turning new and imaginative ideas into
reality. Creativity is characterized by the ability to perceive the
world in new ways, to find hidden patterns, to make connections
between seemingly unrelated phenomena, andto
solutions. generate involvestwo processes:
Creativity thinking, then
producing.
If you have ideas but don’t act on them, you are imaginative
but not creative.
“Creativity is a combinatorial force: it’s our ability to tap into our
‘inner’ pool of resources – knowledge, insight, information,
inspiration and all the fragments populating our minds – that
we’ve accumulated over the years just by being present and alive
and awake to the world and to combine them in extraordinary new
ways.” — Maria Popova, Brainpickings
“Creativity is the process of bringing something new into
being. Creativity requires passion and commitment. It brings
to our awareness what was previously hidden and points to
new life. The experience is one of heightened consciousness:
ecstasy.” – Rollo May, The Courage to Create
Is this possible in business? I believe so, but you have to be
willing to take risks and progress through discomfort to get to
the finish line.

“A product is creative when it is (a) novel and (b)

appropriate. A novel product is original not predictable. The
bigger the concept, and the more the product stimulates
further work and ideas, the more the product is creative.”
—Sternberg & Lubart, Defying the Crowd
 MEANING OF INNOVATION AND
CREATIVITY

►Innovation is the process of turning a new

concept into commercial success or widespread
use. Invention is the creation of a new idea or
concept.
►Creativity is the act of turning new and
imaginative ideas into reality.
 DIFFERENCE BETWEEN CREATIVITY AND
INNOVATION
■The main difference between creativity and innovation is the focus.
Creativity is about unleashing the potential of the mind to conceive new
ideas.

■ Creativity is subjective, making it hard to measure, as our creative

friends assert.

■Innovation, on the other hand, is completely measurable. Innovation

is about introducing change into relatively stable systems. It’s also
concerned with the work required to make an idea viable. By identifying
an unrecognized and unmet need, an organization can use innovation
to apply its creative resources to design an appropriate solution and
reap a return on its investment.
 Types of Innovation
Innovation, innovation, innovation! There’s hardly a business
event or conversation you can have without hearing the term these
days.
Innovation has been one of the hottest topics of the last couple of
decades, and while a lot of people are sick and tired of hearing
about it everywhere, the term and the concept behind it are here to
stay.
can be a confusing topic because there are so many different kinds
of innovations out there and everyone seems to use the term
differently.
Although you often hear about innovation in terms of technology
and although it’s true that technological innovation has been,
and
will likely continue to be, the most obvious form of innovation, it
comes in variety of other forms too.
 1 Incremental innovation
Most innovations are incremental, gradual and continuous
improvements in the existing concepts, products or services in the
existing market.
Incremental innovations are just a little better than the previous
version of the product or service and has only slight variations
on an existing product formulation or service delivery method.
Products can be made smaller, easier to use or more
attractive
without changing the core functionality of it and services can be
made more efficient through constant improvement.

Although incremental innovation does not create new markets

and often does not leverage radically new technology, it can
attract higher paying customers because it fulfils the customer
needs identified from their behaviour or feedback.
TV is a classic example of both of these scenarios as it’s
constantly improved and there are new models available while the
core idea and the components remain mostly the same. The
mainstream customer can, for example, have a 50” LED television
with just a couple of hundred dollars while the more demanding
customers can easily spend thousands on a 75” OLED TV.

What’s convenient about incremental innovation is that it’s often

easy to sell because you don’t need to explain the key principles of
your product or service – people are already familiar with the way
it works.

A possible downside is that incremental innovations do not

necessarily make a huge impact because they’re often just slightly
better than what’s already out there.
 2 Sustaining innovation
Sustaining innovation is the opposite of disruptive innovation as it
exists in the current market and instead of creating new value
networks, it improves and grows the existing ones by satisfying
the needs of a customer.

Just like incremental innovation, the product performance of

sustaining innovation is made slightly better with every iteration,
reducing defects. The new improved version of the product can be
more expensive and have higher margins than the previous one if
it targets more demanding, high-end customers with better
performance than what was previously available.

Sustaining innovations, in turn, continue to grow the market

slowly, but no longer in the same proportion. At this point, the
focus shifts to increasing profits.
An example of a once disruptive, currently
fully sustaining and profitable innovation is
iPhone,

where the recent versions of the phone appeal

to the same customer segments and do not create
new value networks. As the criticism of lack of
innovativeness of the new iPhone has increased,
the firm’s profits have grown at the same pace.
 3 Radical innovation
Radical innovation is rare as it has similar characteristics to
disruptive innovation but is different in a way that it
simultaneously uses revolutionary technology and a new
business model.
Radical innovation solves global problems and addresses needs
in completely new ways than what we’re used to and even provides
solutions to needs and problems we didn’t know we had,
completely transforming the market, or even the entire economy.
Although radical innovations are rare, there have been more and
more of them in the recent past.
Technological innovations, such as personal computer and
the internet are examples of radical innovations that have
transformed
the way the entire world functions and communicates.
These
disruptive innovations provide our society with a platform to build
 Disruptive innovation
Disruptive innovation is a concept introduced by
professor, academic and business consultant Clayton
Christensen first in an HBR article and later in his book
called Innovator’s Dilemma.

Disruptive innovation is a theory that refers to a concept,

product, or a service that creates a new value network
either by entering an existing market or by creating a
completely new market.
 Other Types of Innovation
While the aforementioned four types of innovation in the
innovation matrix are a common way of describing the
technology an innovation uses and the impact it has on the
market, it’s not the only way to categorize innovation.

You wouldn’t necessarily start your next innovation initiative by

just telling people to come up with new disruptive business ideas
that are going to transform the entire industry, or simply to make
more incremental innovation happen.

To get more concrete and actionable results, innovation should be

approached holistically. In this part of the post, we’ll introduce
other types of innovation that can be used to improve and unlock
new value in different parts of your business.
 Types of Creativity
1) Deliberate and Cognitive creativity
People who possess deliberate and cognitive characteristics are
purposeful. They have a great amount of knowledge about a
particular subject and combine their skills and capabilities to
prepare a course of action to achieve something. This type of
creativity built when people work for a very long time in a
particular area.

People who fall under this type of category of creativity are

usually proficient at research, problem- solving, investigation and
experimentation. This type of creativity is located in the brain’s
prefrontal cortex, which is at the front part of the brain. These
types of creative people spend a great deal of time every single day
testing to develop new solutions.
People who possess deliberate and cognitive characteristics are
purposeful. They have a great amount of knowledge about a
particular subject and combine their skills and capabilities to
prepare a course of action to achieve something. This type of
creativity built when people work for a very long time in a
particular area.

People who fall under this type of category of creativity are

usually proficient at research, problem- solving, investigation and
experimentation. This type of creativity is located in the brain’s
prefrontal cortex, which is at the front part of the brain. These
types of creative people spend a great deal of time every single
day testing to develop new solutions.
Deliberate and Cognitive creativity
Thomas Alva Edison is one
prominent example of this
type of creative people. He
ran experiment after
experimen
t inventing electricity,befor
the
light bulb, e
telecommunication.
and Hence,
deliberate and cognitive
creativity requires a great
deal of time, dedication and
abundance of knowledge
about a particular subject
 2) Deliberate And Emotional Creativity
People who are categorized as deliberate and emotional let their
work influenced by their state of emotions. These types of
creative people are very emotional and sensitive in nature. These
individuals prefer relatively quiet and personal time to reflect
and they usually have a habit of diary writing. However, they are
equally logical and rational in decision making.

Their creativity is always a balanced product of deliberate

emotional thinking and logical actions. This type of creativity is
found in the amygdala and cingulate cortex parts of the human
brain. Amygdala is responsible for human emotions whereas
cingulate cortex helps in learning and information processing.
This type of creativity happens to people at random
moments. Those moments are usually referred to as “a-
ha!” moments when someone suddenly thinks of a
solution to some problem or think of some innovative
idea.

For example, there are situations when you feel low and
emotional which distracts you from your work. In those
kinds of situations, you should take 5 minutes and point
out the things which are making you sad and keep them
aside and focus on the work in hand. It will help you to
get improvised results and you will get work done easily.
One should seek “quiet time” for deliberate and emotional
creativity to happen to them
 3) Spontaneous and Cognitive creativity

There are times when you spend a long time to crack a problem
but can’t think of any solution.

For example, when you want to make a schedule for a month to

get a job done, but you can’t seem to think of any possible way
and when you are watching television and having your relaxed
time and suddenly you think of a solution and everything falls in
place. The same case happened with the great scientist Isaac
Newton. He got the idea about the law of gravity when an apple
hit his head while he was sitting under a tree and relaxing.

his is the “Eureka!” moments for Newton and an excellent

example of a spontaneous and cognitive person
This type of creativity happens when one has the knowledge to get
a particular job done, but he requires inspiration and a hint to walk
towards the right path. This type of creativity usually happens at
the most inconvenient time, such as, when you are in bed with your
partner or having a shower. Spontaneous and cognitive creativity
takes place when the conscious mind stops working and go to relax
and unconscious mind gets a chance to work.

Mostly, this type of creative person stops conscious thinking when

they need to do “out of the box” thinking. By indulging in different
and unrelated activities, the unconscious mind gets a chance to
connect information in new ways which provide solutions to the
problems. Therefore, to let this type of creativity happen one
should take a break from the problem and get away to let conscious
mind overtake.
 4) Spontaneous And Emotional Creativity
Spontaneous and emotional creativity takes place in the
“amygdala” part of the human brain. Amygdala is responsible for
all emotional type of thinking in the human brain. Spontaneous
ideas and creativity happen when conscious and Prefrontal brain
is resting. This type of creativity is mostly found in a great artist
such as musicians, painters, and writers etc. This type of creativity
is also related to “epiphanies”.

Epiphany is a sudden realization of something. Spontaneous and

emotional creativity is responsible for a scientific breakthrough,
religious and also philosophical discoveries. This allows the
enlightened person to look at a problem or situation with a
different and deeper viewpoint.
 4) Spontaneous And Emotional Creativity

Those moments are

defined as rare moments
when great discoveries
take place. There is no
need to have specific
knowledg for
“spontaneous
e
and emotional” creativity
to happen but there
should be a skill such as
writing, musical or
artistic. This type of
creativity can’t be
obtained by working on it.
ROLE OF CREATIVITY AND INNOVATION IN
INDUSTRIES AND ORGANIZATION
♦ Creativity provides new ideas for quality improvement
in organizations and innovation puts these ideas into action.

♦ Change often involves new and better ideas.

♦The new idea may be the creation of a new product or process or it

can be an idea about how to change completely the way business is
carried out.

♦ Innovation Helps Organizations Differentiate Themselves

♦If your organization is using innovation on its processes, it's because

doing so will save you time, money, or other resources, and give you a
competitive advantage over other companies stuck in their systems.
DYNAMICS OF CREATIVE THINKING
In dynamical systems terms, the process of creative thought may be
viewed as the simultaneous creation and exploration of autopoietic
attractors. Ideas are explored, and allowed to lead to other ideas, in
trajectories that evolve in parallel. Eventually this dynamic process leads
to a kind of rough "convergence" on a strange attractor -- a basic sense
for what kind of idea, what kind of product one is going to have. The
various parts of this attractor are then explored in a basically chaotic
way, until a particular part of the attractor is converged to. In formal
language terms, we may express this by saying that the act of creative
inspiration creates its own languages, which it then narrows down into
simpler and simpler languages, until it arrives at languages that the rest
of the mind can understand.
PROCESS OF DESIGN THINKING
Stage 1: Empathize—Research Your Users' Needs
Here, you should gain an empathetic understanding of the problem
you’re trying to solve, typically through user research. Empathy is crucial
to a human-centered design process such as design thinking because it
allows you to set aside your own assumptions about the world and gain
real insight into users and their needs.

Stage 2: Define—State Your Users' Needs and Problems

It’s time to accumulate the information gathered during the Empathize
stage. You then analyze your observations and synthesize them to define
the core problems you and your team have identified. These definitions
are called problem statements. You can create personas to help keep
your efforts human-centered before proceeding to ideation.
Stage 3: Ideate—Challenge Assumptions and Create Ideas
Now, you’re ready to generate ideas. The solid background of
knowledge from the first two phases means you can start to “think
outside the box”, look for alternative ways to view the problem
and
identify innovative solutions to the problem statement you’ve
created. Brainstorming is particularly useful here..
Stage 4: Prototype—Start to Create Solutions
This is an experimental phase. The aim is to identify the best possible
solution for each problem found. Your team should produce some
inexpensive, scaled-down versions of the product (or specific features
found within the product) to investigate the ideas you’ve generated.
This could involve simply paper prototyping.
Stage 5: Test—Try Your Solutions Out
Evaluators rigorously test the prototypes. Although this is the
final phase, design thinking is iterative: Teams often use the
results to redefine one or more further problems. So, you
can return to previous stages to make further iterations,
alterations and refinements – to find or rule out alternative
solutions.
 IMPLEMENTING THE PROCESS
IN DRIVING INNOVATION
Five Steps to Implementing Innovation

■ Spot opportunities for innovation.

■ Prioritize opportunities.
■ Test your potential innovations.
■ Build support for your innovations.
■ Learn from your innovation efforts.