A Necessary Upgrade to Design Thinking

You're invited to be part of a team that has to solve a critical problem the organization is facing. The team’s leaders, who is really passionate about the design thinking methodology, explains to everyone the nature of the task at hand, what the leaders consider the problem to be, the compelling need for a prompt and relevant solution and the willingness to use design thinking to find a solution that works. You and the team start working to find the solution. 

It all starts by analyzing the initial problem in order to truly and deeply understand causes and effects. This exercise is useful to ensure full understanding of the nature and characteristics of the problem and decide whether one cause or the other is more heavily affecting the organization. This stage involves several tools to think in terms of human centered design. Actually, this might be one of the most fundamental values of design thinking: its capacity to design and think empathetically based on customers or users’ real needs. To do that, the team interviews people, proceeds with ethnographic studies, maps what customers usually do and how the problem affects them (journey mapping), etc. This stage is considered the "what is", or defining the problem.   

Once the team determines and agrees on the definition of the problem, the next step is storming potential solutions. Here the team becomes very creative. This is where design thinking earns its greater value as a methodology. It allows and guides people to be imaginative, curious and creative, and ideate whatever solution comes to their mind. In this stage there are "no constraints". This is the "what if". 

What if we could do anything? What if we didn't have any constraint? What if we had all the resources available? However, like the kid who is thrilled on his way to the park thinking he will be able to ride all attractions, but is not allowed to do so, in the what if stage the team’s motivation goes so high that it loses contact with the constraint-limited reality that characterizes every single organization in the world, its problems and potential solutions.  

And the kid runs through the park rushing his way to the rollercoaster, only to find that he doesn’t meet the height and age requirements! He wanted to do something, and crashed against reality. In the design thinking team, when everybody has had their high infusion of motivation by thinking and designing whatever possible solution comes to their mind, the next two stages of the methodology narrows potential solutions down by asking "what wows" and "what works" (these questions are based on the approach used by Darden School and Professor Jeanne Liedtka in her book Designing for Growth). 

These two stages are some sort of reality check. They serve the purpose of inviting the team to think what solution sticks better with what people and organization want, and take the solution to a prototyping and experimentation level in order to test its validity in a controlled environment.  

After a few weeks of thinking, designing, prototyping and experimenting, the team that was initially tasked with finding a solution comes back and present the process and results to corporate leaders. The presentation and solution sound good, and the results of the experimentation seem to show that the solution works well and can be scaled. But when they finish their presentation, the leaders, with savvy about the many constraints in the industry, begin a discussion and find that the solution does work, if all these constraints didn't exist. They know and feel that the solution found could potentially become a disruptive innovation, but it doesn’t solve the existing problem. For that particular problem, they are not looking for disruption, but rather for a workable, sustainable and relevant solution. They ask the team to go back to the design table and make sure that whatever idea is experimented with takes into account the limitations of the industry.  

The upgrade to design thinking 

It is precisely in this discussion of a constraint-limited environment where the seed for a powerful upgrade of the design thinking methodology lies. Some people think that design thinking is just too idealistic and it doesn't work. They say it is a great way to boost motivation by allowing people to be imaginative and creative about any kind of solution. Yet, design thinking detractors say that when those solutions are confronted with the non-idealistic reality they crash against a big wall of challenges, constraints and limitations.   

But design thinking can do much better if its approach to thinking “what wows” wand “what works” is upgraded. The "what if" stage should always remain idealistic and romantic, because it is precisely the opportunity for people to think as if there weren't any boxes in the world. This stage is powerful not only to solve the problems at hand, but as the incubator for future disruptive innovations. 

Nevertheless, disruption is not always the way a company wants to solve a problem. And the third and fourth stages of design thinking, “what wows” and “what works”, must be oriented and informed by the limitations that exist in the industry and not only by the results of experiments in controlled environments. For example, frequently a solution can survive an experiment but failed to meet government regulations, in which case it is just not useful for the specific reality at hand. Yes, the organization could think about lobbying and making changes to regulations, but that would create a number of additional constraints and limitations. 

The upgrade to design thinking doesn't come in the form of a reality check, but intertwining the definition and nature of the constraints in the discussion of what could work. The prototyping and experimentation stages must include these constraints in the design in order to avoid results that only work in controlled environments. In doing so, there’s an important upgrade in the approach to using this powerful methodology. This upgrade creates solutions that can be both bold to challenge the existing reality, but also fully understanding of the limitations of the industry.

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Visit my blog: www.innovationdev.org

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About the Author: Enrique Rubio is an Electronic Engineer and a Fulbright scholar with an Executive Master’s Degree in Public Administration from Syracuse University. Enrique is passionate about leadership, business and social entrepreneurship, curiosity, creativity and innovation. He is a blogger and podcaster, and also a competitive ultrarunner. Visit the blog: Innovation for Development and Podcast. Click here to follow Enrique on Twitter. 

Disclaimer: opinions are my own and not the views of my past or current employer