FIGURE 1: THE DESIGN THINKING PROCESS
Design Thinking can logically be broken down into four processes: Immersion, Synthesis, Prototyping and Execution.
The immersion process consists of fully understanding the problem from the perspectives of the people experiencing the problem. Design Thinking has a strong human centred approach to problem solving and puts the person at the centre of the design. This process is much the same that an anthropologist would follow when studying new cultures.
The synthesis stage has a strong focus on story telling and creative thinking. The experiences collected by the observers are told through a story to the rest of the team and these stories are used as the basis of an ideation session. The ideas are collected and then funnelled into a smaller set and each idea is tested through a rapid prototyping process. The intention is to try out each idea and quickly identify the ideas that will not work. Once a solution has been identified, the final phase is to follow a structured project management process to implement the product / service.
The Innovation Journal
An Integrative Approach From a practical perspective, System Thinking allows us to better understand the systems around us and brings us face to face with our own mental models. We can use this information to identify the leverage points in the system. Once we understand the system and these leverage points, we can start to identify the areas where innovation will have the most impact.
When identifying opportunities for innovations, it is useful to also understand the impacts to the environment should nothing change, called the ‘As it will be’ state. The value this offers in impetus to change. Armed with this information, we can plan the desired state, called the ‘As it should be’ state.
Once the desired state has been identified, systems thinking recommends that we design the migration from the current to the desired state, factoring in the leverage points we have identified. Design thinking can add huge value to this process by enabling us to immerse ourselves into the problem area from a human centric perspective. Very seldom do we design solutions that are not going to end up September 2012 | Management Today 55
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