Reflection Journal: Design Thinking

INTRODUCTION

This report is prepared to reflect upon the studies on Design thinking and its process. First exploration of terms design, designers and design thinking after going through the process is done. This involves my understanding and perception of these terms. Secondly, my experience in working with groups and group dynamics which reflect failures and successes. The limitations of innovation process and Design thinking process are further explored. The report also includes Critical self-analysis in order to better relate the design thinking process and explore my design personality.

DESIGNER, DESIGN AND DESIGN THINKING

What I learnt was that Design Thinkers need to have people centric approach while working, every time you think about an idea, you have to put yourself in the people’s position for whom you are designing. Observation is a key in this process. We need to observe and notice things that others don’t. This is how disruptive solution is generated.

The entire process involved steps through chaos, experimentation was one of it. What we think might work, was questioned by us at every point of proceeding. This led to coming up with entire new ideas.

Anything a product, a service where human interaction is involved can be improved by design that is human centric.

Features of Design Thinking

•  Addressing complexities with simplicity
•  Creating feasible and viable solutions
•  Focusing on User Requirements
•  Involves both analysis and imagination
•  Iterative approach

How Designers thinks and see the world?

A designer brings together what is desirable from human point of view with what is feasible. The process of design thinking allows people who aren’t trained as designers to use creative tools to address various challenges. Designers think logically, use imagination, intuition to explore possibilities of what could be a desired outcome that benefits the end user. In the days where technology is the biggest driving force of the businesses and society, it’s necessary to find a problem which is worth solving. As businesses will strive for disruptive innovation, design thinking will be the best possible way to inject and scale creativity across their organization.

• ·      The example of Design for trust, by Airbnb Founder
• ·      Design is an experience, Airbnb founders who were also designers tried to develop Olympic trust between complete strangers which was a “danger” in social view. The trust challenge was dealt by designing a reputation system which was a key to developing trust. In conclusion, Designers can take the components of trust and then build the design around it.

Design Thinking Is Organized Chaos

Design thinking is not only about the process and tools, but it’s about people as well. About us as a design thinker and about people who we want to create value for. Focusing on our mindsets to help it better prepared to both see and act on opportunity when it shows up. “Follow the customers home” as a part of examining “what is” and explore the problems THEY are trying to solve in life versus the products they use. The process might look creative, but it needs discipline at the same time. Hence even if the process of design thinking that involves tons of tools and might seem illogical is actually an organized chaos.

GROUP DYNAMICS AND CHALLENGES

The way design thinking works is you swim in unknown waters, you might come up with a solution to the problem that people didn’t even know existed, labelled as Disruptive solution. Various tools under the guidance of tutor were helped to apply throughout the process. The way of making us comfortable with the process and trust each other in terms of the teamwork was really helpful. This was the first time when I, as a business student actually worked on a common goal with different perspectives and ideas of each individual but still were successful in coming up with a solution taking into consideration each and every idea, concept and possible vague solutions. Design thinking stimulates the brain, and the imagination power is at its best. We worked outside the class and actually talked to the people for whom we are deigning the solution. That made more sense than to search for things online or conclude it by our own assumption.

The interviews need to have open questions, but how? Where do we start, how do we ask questions, what kind of questions would be appropriate in order to not give a sense of direction from our side. For the beginning of the design thinking project questionnaire, we came up with bunch of questions, but the team still knew that it was a guiding/ directing questionnaire towards the topic where mainly we are interested in, or we think of it as the problem. Our interview was quiet on the side of ‘structured’ but when we talked to the 1st person, our team stopped asking half the questions that we had noted down and tried to have open questions wherever possible. The most amazing thing was the interviewees answers started to give us a direction which was marked to be common after some point. Students(interviewees) talked about the same problem again and again or it was a major one that was highlighted. I remember, in the later interviews we did not follow at all the structure of interview, it was more of a talking, having a conversation rather than question and answer.

We noted that it was very important to be a good listener and show empathy with the individuals situation. Even the students said that they have been interviewed or talked with other people for their projects, but they enjoyed being a part of this because we did not ‘demand’ anything. They appreciated how we were going with the flow and listening to the entire part rather than jumping from one question to another. I developed the better understanding of collecting data in a new way which can be more reliable and could help me come up with a solution that sticks being “human centric”.

Brainstorming for me was always formal ideas with a set of predefined, pre assumed rules back in mind. But we had an exercise of “draw your Neighbour” which concluded that no one here is perfect or a fancy designer. This made the judgement factor disappear, and we were ready to put everything we thought about. I remember the time limit never was this exciting, where I could just jot down whatever ideas I can. I was proud of the number of ideas that popped up and there was no filter in my head as to “Feasible Solution”, “Doable Solution” etc. The ideas just flooded in. Though it was done by just ‘thinking’, it was logical enough to be taken into consideration. I am amazed, still, because if we try to do the same with other classes, I cannot delete the filters in my head, and it’s because the professors impose “what is to be done” and only formal way is expected.

We were coming to a conscience, and it was logical. We knew we were heading ‘somewhere’ even if it was not clear.

CULTURE AND DESIGN THINKING

Culture- ‘Programming of the human mind by which one group of people distinguishes itself from anothergroup’ - Professor Geert Hofstede

A culture is a group phenomenon, the behaviour of particular groups are the base of assessments. Culture is a word with many meanings, this onion is used to avoid confusion.

 Culture defines the way a design would generate, its impact on us is iterating. We need to put human at the center meaning that culture- thinking is behavior centered. When we design, the designs generate behaviors that in turn shape our culture. Hence culture has iterative   influence on this way of working.

Creative Organization matrix

As in design thinking, user / human centered design is applauded or is the guiding direction, the motivation is in the form of responsibility towards people’s ‘real’ needs. The culture is deeply rooted in a designer’s design personality. Culture overlaps with purpose one is aiming. Creative cultures can be built as shown in the Matrix

 CREATIVITY

Creativity, the ability to bring novel and appropriate ideas on the table is essential element that helps sustain the best companies. There exists a role of management in creativity. “One doesn’t manage creativity. One manages FOR creativity.” (4) According to personal analysis of entire process of design thinking, for creativity motivation is essential to stay inspired. The way a leader asks questions can also count towards guiding direction. Creativity involves approaching challenges with imaginative and innovative thinking, which requires necessary adaptability qualities, hence managing the creativity is a complex task which makes the necessity of creative leadership. Creative cultures can be promoted in order to manage creativity guided by creative leadership.

 BUILDING CREATIVE CULTURES

Culture has a huge force on how people operate individually or in group. Creative cultures biggest enemy is the excuse “we do no have time”. Innovation projects in order to promote creative cultures is not the only way to do so. The behaviors that are blocking the creativity in an organization needs to be found out. Shifting cultures will take time, it’s a marathon not a sprint. Not everyone is expected to get on board from the very 1st day. There will be change in systems, removing the barriers and constant check in behavioral changes. The starting months could be learning and experimentation. Personally, when there is a hierarchy, as it adds in numbers more reporting will only cause a constraint in creative results. The higher ups usually are disconnected with the sub teams.

CRAETIVE LEADERSHIP

A creative leader aims for diversity and promotes inclusive participation. A creative leadership creates an environment that promotes shared ambition, creativity and innovation. A good leader could be the one who has ability to create innovative solutions especially when the shift is towards the new approaches that are unknown. Someone who can still create a clear purpose for the teams. Our generation is not aiming to work with multinational companies with long histories, but they want to be employees working for leaders with clear passion and purpose.

‘The role of a creative leader is not to have all the ideas but to create a culture in which everyone can have ideas and feels valued’ – Sir Ken Robinson

Characteristics of a good creative leader

•  Clear vision and purpose
•  Risk taker and motivator
•  Continuous Improvement culture
•  Learners; not limited by logical process.
•  Encourage and enable collaboration

Building the right team

•     Set a Value which will act as a criterion to select the team members
•     Build a Team that is diverse (Work experience, education, Cultural backgrounds etc)
•     Give Credits every time. Appreciate whenever possible
•     Sweet spot (What the employee’s passions and expertise are with the company needs)

MANAGING CREATIVIY AND DESIGN THINKING

Design thinking can help us bring confidence in uncertainty. Managing our way as a team is a part of the transformation. People who are not familiar with the process might need right guidance and support of leaders to walk through the uncertainty. The research by Bason C. and Austin R.  shows, the management of design thinking approach could be successfully divided in 2 categories

1)     Leveraging Empathy

Leaders/ Design thinking experts promote the idea of present data analysis rather than the past statistics. Recordings, videos, Pictures rather than tables and graphs. This ensures deep understanding on users’ circumstances. If well managed, can generate change and motivate the workspace.

2)     Encouraging Divergence and Navigating Ambiguity

It’s up to management done by leaders in order to ensure the emergence of diverse new ideas with well-maintained sense of direction. It could be loss of control in the process but can be concluded as a positive loss of control.

·      Open mindedness

Brainstorming process involves identifying several options which could be used as solutions. When we come up with ideas the 1st part of ideas (around 3-4) are generated easily. But it is really difficult to come with those providing other possible solutions. Open mindedness can be educated by someone who is willing to consider the ideas and options that are new and different than the usual ones.

• Design thinking being human centric need us to become someone else, receptive and tolerant, with no discrimination. If we are willing to change our views at any wanted times this helps developing open perspective that helps in solving users’ problems.
• Here, it’s necessary to unanchored your initial thoughts which are constantly pointing towards contrasting solutions or similar solutions.
• Open, explore and close system can be used in order to promote open mindedness.

a.      Open(suspend judgments) - Instead of analyzing adopt “Yes. And…” attitude to build on each others ideas.

b.      Explore (Organizing) – Looking for meaningful patterns that can be used

c.      Close (Prioritizing) – Assessing options, a convergent mode focused on narrowing the options 

 Organizational culture is defined by management.

Organizational Culture is company’s values, beliefs and attitude, and in turn how they influence the employee behavior. In my view, the organizational culture depends on the management. Culture is what people believe, how they think and what they do, or don’t, how they do/don’t, what they say etc. For example, if the management has the ability to promote collaboration, adaptability, is flexible will create the reason for how the organization’s culture shapes itself.

Future for innovation and design within business environment.

Innovation and design thinking have its own limitations. In today’s world, focus should be on the problems that are present because they need to be solved in order to have a future. Following table shows how innovation limits in business environment can be transferred in design thinking in order to have improved outcomes.

Weakness of design thinking associated towards innovation

Design thinking has become the most common buzz in innovation. But Design thinking approach towards innovation has certain weaknesses.

• Design thinking approach or training won’t guarantee to create innovative work culture. People will feel energized for a while, but if a culture where innovation thrives isn’t created the training will be forgotten.
• Design thinking cannot provide an innovation strategy. On one hand design thinking teaches you to have empathy with customers but at the same time it won’t dictate your organizations innovation strategy. In innovation, the territories where you want your business to innovate are known, you can have methods for customer focused solutions. Example, deciding customer segments, new additional possible customer categories all these are strategic decisions that need to be made before working on design thinking process.
• Focused on present, meaning the innovation can drive its inspiration from future possibilities but Design thinking focuses only on present needs and desires.

Critical self-analysis

A challenge when ‘designing’ is involved is to bridge a gap between our world and the design practice. What as a person inspires me to come up with innovative solutions in the first place? My values which revolved around culture, collaboration and environment, did they have to do something with how the process was unfolded, from my view? The inspiration domain is yet to be discovered but the course helped in discovering “what kind of vision I seek when I think about coming up with a solution?” My answer is clear, whatever we design as a solution always has a vision, which we might not even be aware of but it revolves around our beliefs, values and motivation. Assumptions being a part of process need to be talked out or worked upon, I learnt that assumptions are not simply restrictions to be kept to yourself, but through the design thinking process they pop in the tools almost every time. They can be reviewed, discussed and sorted. Once I found out, that I can be a part of a process by being myself where I was allowed to create without boundaries or filters, I was successful in convincing my belief that the idea doesn’t have to be big, it can be something small and easy. This is where I found my own track. I think the entire process helped me to discover that I was able to formulate deeper thoughts and I could know a bit about my own design personality.

CONCLUSION

•  Design thinking is a fresh approach creating unique teams of people to tackle problems. The design thinking process is an empowering experience that encourages one to think about their beliefs and biases that one holds as a designer. A designer can hold power, what he inherits from his environment and culture in order to design solutions for people he doesn’t necessarily know. 
•  Creative leadership can build the creative culture across the organization. By building right team and have a good creative leader creative culture will thrive.
•  Design thinking can help us bring confidence in uncertainty but only if creativity is managed. Design thinking management can be successful by leveraging empathy Encouraging Divergence and Navigating Ambiguity
•  Design thinking process is not a constraint but a structure that elevates creativity. It is a mix of iteration, collaboration, freedom to choose, challenging assumptions in order to improve the effectiveness of the process. It’s a continuous evaluation of ideas by collaborating. So even if the process is chaotic, it can be concluded as an organized chaos.

References

1)     Liedtka, J. (2018, Sept-Oct) Why Design Thinking works, Harvard Business Review 

2)     Bason C. and Austin R. (2019, March- April) The Right way to lead Design Thinking, Harvard Business Review

3)     Gould K. Design Thinking’s three modes of Thinking: Open, explore, close, The Design Gym

4)     Amabile T. and Khaire M. (2008, October) Creativity and Role of leader, Harvard Business Review

5)     Building a Design Thinking Culture at Individual, teams and organizational level based on Cromax (Creative Organization matrix)