FIGURE 2: A DESIGN APPROACH TO SYSTEMS THINKING
being used by humans. Design thinking puts the human at the centre of the problem and ensures that the end solution not only solves the problem, but also factors in the person who will be interacting with the solution.
A great example of this is the Nespresso
coffee machine. Anybody can make a great coffee machine; and many have. The problem is that with most coffee machines, you require a PhD just to operate the damn thing! So the problem has essentially been solved and the company who developed the machine are most likely very impressed with their solution. Having broken my fair share of fancy Swiss and Italian coffee machines, I can personally attest to how little consideration was given to the human who would be operating these machines. Enter Nespresso, who have not only managed to build a state of the art, technologically impressive coffee machine, but have made its operation ridiculously simple. But they did not stop there, they also built an experience around their product. You are no longer buying a coffee machine, you are buying an experience.
When it comes to solving complex problems, systems thinking will help to understand the environment, however design thinking will encourage us to look beyond the boundaries of our current ecosystem. Design thinkers have the ability to take two conflicting points of view and hold them in their head at the same time until a heuristic starts to emerge from this chaos. This is an exceptionally powerful technique to identify disruptive innovations, but requires that we remain in a
56 Management Today | September 2012
highly uncomfortable space for long periods of time. Our analytical brain will rebel against this approach, but if we can persevere the results can bring about huge opportunities and give us a sustainable competitive advantage.
approach of design thinking. Design thinking has
been centred
Systems thinking can also improve the traditionally
on the
designer, which excludes the stakeholders from contributing towards the solution. This approach is out-dated and many companies, such as IDEO, have moved towards a more collaborative approach, but this is still focussed around a team of designers. Even with this collaborative designer approach, the stakeholders only understand the problem from their individual perspectives and do not get the benefit of understanding the problem from the perspectives of
the other stakeholders.
The approach taken by systems thinking is to include all of the stakeholders into the design process. Not only are the people impacted by the problem able to contribute to the solution, but they will own the solution, which will ensure that they will be far more likely to embrace the solution. This is a key contributor to making the innovation sustainable.
Conclusion
The complexities of today’s business challenges require us to challenge our existing mental models. Einstein described insanity as the process of applying the same thinking to a problem, but expecting a different result. Frameworks such as systems and design thinking allow us to explore our existing mental models and challenge them.
The Innovation Journal
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