It always surprises me how things sometimes go together when you watch them for a while. Where shall I start?
I think it has been on Peter Merholz (Adaptive Path) blog where I’ve recently read about the term “Design Thinking” (even though his posting has been quite critical and focused on web design). Peter directed me to Dan Saffer who has tried to enlighten the nowadays widely used term “Design Thinking” by his (preliminary) list of things what “Design Thinking” comprises (the following list is quoted from his recommendable blog posting):
– A Focus on Customers/Users. It’s not about the company and how your business is structured. The customer doesn’t care about that. They are care about doing their tasks and achieving their goals within their limits. Design thinking begins with those.
– Finding Alternatives. Designing isn’t about choosing between multiple options, it’s about creating those options. Brenda Laurel speaks of her love of James T. Kirk’s “third option” instead of two undesirable choices. It’s this finding of multiple solutions to problems that sets designers apart.
– Ideation and Prototyping. The way we find those solutions is through brainstorming and then, importantly, building models to test the solutions out. Now, I know that scientists and architects and even accountants model things, and possibly in a similar way, but there’s a significant difference: our prototypes aren’t fixed. One doesn’t necessarily represent the solution, only a solution. It’s not uncommon for several prototypes to be combined into a single product.
– Wicked Problems. The problems designers are used to taking on are those without a clear solution, with multiple stakeholders, fuzzy boundaries, and where the outcome is never known and usually unexpected. Being able to deal with the complexity of these “wicked” problems is one of the hallmarks of design thinking.
– A Wide Range of Influences. Because design touches on so many subject areas (psychology, ergonomics, economics, engineering, architecture, art, etc.), designers should bring to the table a broad, multi-disciplinary spectrum of ideas from which to draw inspiration and solutions.
– Emotion. In analytical thinking, emotion is seen as an impediment to logic and making the right choices. In design, decisions without an emotional component are lifeless and do not connect with people.”
Further research directed me to Victor Lombardi’s blog (www.noisebetweenstations.com) and his six adjectives characterising “Design Thinking” (quoted from this posting):
– Collaborative, especially with others having different and complimentary experience, to generate better work and form agreement
– Abductive, inventing new options to find new and better solutions to new problems
– Experimental, building prototypes and posing hypotheses, testing them, and iterating this activity to find what works and what doesn’t work to manage risk
– Personal, considering the unique context of each problem and the people involved
– Integrative, perceiving an entire system and its linkages
– Interpretive, devising how to frame the problem and judge the possible solutions
Two weeks ago I’ve had a Skype-Chat (will “Skyping” become similar to “Googling”?) with Niti Bhan and I’ve written a post about it here. One of our conclusions has been to intensify the topic of “Design Thinking” and connect it closer to “Business Thinking” (which is worth another posting ;-). One of our ideas has been to embed this initiative into some sort of “organisation” (more later on in this posting).
Yesterday on CPH127 (with their current posting frequency the according posting is almost “old”) Hans Henrik wrote an informative posting about the basic ideas “Open Source Thinking” which extends the previously said perfectly (For reasons of posting space I’d like to recommend reading Hans’ original posting here). However one of the the quotes he lists says:
“Often, the most striking and innovative solutions come from realizing that your concept of the problem was wrong.”
Unfortunately this has been rarely accepted by the business community and the recent story about LogoWorks and Laura Ries’ Blog (here on this blog) is a good example of this (however in this case the “solution” is still lacking and Laura/Marketing/Business has to realise that misunderstanding a concept is not a mortal sin).
One of the contributors of this discussion has been Michael Wagner (thanks for your insights, Mike). In a personal email today he pointed me to Tom Guarriello, author of “The TrueTalk blog”. Recently Tom wrote a posting (“Swarms and Pipelines”) about a presentation by Charles Leadbeater (one of Tony Blair’s favourite Thinkers) at the latest TEDGlobal conference in Oxford/UK. Here’s a quote from Tom’s blog:
“While innovation pipelines rely on special people (”creatives”) in special places (”departments”) doing special things, swarms provide open opportunities for users to create adaptive applications of the “kernel” presented by an originator. That, plus a set of rules for self-monitoring (viz. Wikipedia) presents broad swaths of territory for large numbers of innovators.”
Interestingly both postings (CPH127 and “Swarms and Pipelines”) refer on a meta level to the ideas of open source and collaboration. And as if Niti could read my thoughts she’s done a posting on her blog named “Perspective” (and she’s really good in “creating” perspectives!) about “Organizations and Conferences” today. She somehow integrated all of the previously said by advocating:
Let’s create “… a venue for budding practioners and experienced professionals alike.” where “… business and design, design thinking if you will, come together …”
Well, here’s my reply and Niti’s reply (to be read in full on Niti’s blog):
“When posting my idea about the “Design Thinking Institute” I’ve exactly had the steps in mind which you’ve described. Let me summarise them as follows:
Collect: Set up a virtual space open to everyone who is willing to contribute with their views and ideas (BTW: www.designthinkinginstitute.com is already registered ;-)
Consolidate: Try to identify a pattern of issues which might be worth to be considered in a vision and mission statement
Collaborate: Take the opportunity to form the “real” institute with “real” people at the CPH127 forum next year. Maybe we can make it a conference topic? BTW: The “Design Management Institute” has bee founded in a similar manner some 30 years ago! Listen to Bill Hanon, one of the DMI founders here: http://kisd.de/uploads/media/discussion_dm_hannon.mp3”
Stories like these are something which wouldn’t have been possible without blogs and days like this are something which I love (beside spending them together with my family ;-). – “Everything flows, nothing stands still” (Heraclitus)
Niti Bhan Says:
August 25th, 2005 at 22:57Visit Niti Bhan
Ralf,
You’re seeking the word serendipity. Here’s a blog posting on “Flow” the sense that you are feeling the energy, from our virtual “mind meld” :)
Magnus wrote http://connecta.typepad.com/cph127/2005/08/workflow_a_lead.html
Steve Portigal Says:
August 26th, 2005 at 0:35Visit Steve Portigal
When it comes to ideas, my experience with what Ralf is describing goes beyond serendipity…and I don’t know what word to use, either. Serendipity, to me, involves stumbling on a series of related things almost by accident, but there’s something else that happens when you’re “in the flow” - that you start making connections between things, between ideas, fields, theories, disciplines, etc.
It’s those parallels and links between different areas that can really (for me) lead to innovative and new thinking.
The word synthesis sort of describes that, but doesn’t get at it fully.
Maybe serendipitous synthesis is the phenomenon in question.
That’s not as sexy as design thinking, though. No one is going to post that on their blog and credit Steve Portigal with the term.
Damn.
Michael Says:
August 26th, 2005 at 4:34Visit Michael
Ralf, what a great post! My mind is racing!
johan Says:
August 26th, 2005 at 10:04Visit johan
again great Ralf!
you ‘ve hit that nail again… hard.
thx
Oliver Thylmann’s Blog Says:
August 26th, 2005 at 11:50Visit Oliver Thylmann’s Blog
Design Thinking Thoughts
Ralf posted a deep one again entitled Swarms, Pipelines, Design Thinking and Heraclitus. He is really pushing the blogging part in his work and I highly recommend reading his blog. But I wanted to comment on a few things because
jens Says:
August 27th, 2005 at 16:28Visit jens
design thinking institute…
:)
tempting
the bottom line though will go by the name of “doing”
Magnus Christensson Says:
August 27th, 2005 at 16:39Visit Magnus Christensson
Ralf,
Great post framing some truly interesting possibilities!
We should absolutly use the CPH summit to meet IRL and have the design thinking institute on the agenda. I would be very interested in participate in the making of a such an organisation :-)
I have sent you a mail to discuss the possibilities further via Skype.
Hope to hear from you soon!
jens Says:
August 27th, 2005 at 17:46Visit jens
btw. ralf
if you like these kind of flow sensations, go to one of the big commercial art fairs - basel - or koeln for example (comming up in autumn) … brows through this overload of information on the state of today’s society (preselected by the world’s best art dealers)… nothing that you really can *understand* or *read* in the conventional way.
after two hours on the fair - if it is an o.k. one - you will feel like having been there for a couple of days. you get a lot extremely random but very precise and high energy information. and probably some images will pop up in your mind long after… and then they suddenly may make perfect sense.
sabine Says:
September 6th, 2005 at 17:18Visit sabine
I just came across this blog for the first time. I know Dan and his blog and I just wanted to add a few things: first, for those who are seeking to learn more about design thinking, I recommend two books: The Idea of Design and Discovering Design. Both are co-edited by Richard Buchanan and Victor Margolin. Richard is my doctoral advisor at Carnegie Mellon’s School of Design where Dan also finished his masters. Second, design thinking is just one side of the coin. The other side is design methods. Some people on this blog already pointed to the need to better understand how design works. How do we talk about designING? How does design thinking link to action? What makes design thinking different from Non-design thinking? Who can engage in desing thinking? etc. Good to see the German design scene slowly warming up to these issues. For the longest time, there seemed to be an obsession with form (Design as Object). Admittedly, I have my own view on design management and I can tell you, seeing a row of binders used as synonym for “managing design” on the main page is exactly what I think is wrong with it. It communicates that design management is an administrative task, one that concerns itself with making decisions “by the book.” Instead, managers are coming around and find more often than not that what they say is “managing” is often more like “designing.” Check out “Managing as Designing” (2004) by Richard Boland and Fred Callopy for more on that.
Ralf Beuker Says:
September 6th, 2005 at 17:49Visit Ralf Beuker
Hi Sabine,
thanks for your notes and the literature links. You’ve raised important issues in your comment and I and we (a group of people at www.cph127.com preparing the “Design Thinking Insitute” to go live next year) appreciate as many different views and aspects on the topic.
I’m not sure if this blog is representative for Germany starting to think about “Design thinking”, yet ;-) I still think we’re very only a few (but via our blogs powerful) people yet. In this regard I don’t see or feel as being “German” ;-)
I’m sorry to see that the header image created some sort of “misinterpretation”. If you reload the page you will notice that the header graphics are rather meant as a pointer to literature which I find worth reading on the area of “Design Management” (whatever that means! ;-) If you would have experienced some more page reloads you would have noticed that I’ve already included the title “The Idea of Design” in a header image. Just give it one more try ;-)
Finally I would be happy if you could share some of your views on Design Management here on the blog or via a personal dialogue via email. I’m really interested in your perspective!
Keep commenting, Ralf.
sabine Says:
September 6th, 2005 at 18:59Visit sabine
Hi Ralf,
I should be writing on my dissertation and have been distracted a lot lately by what is going on in New Orleans. Thus, I’ll just throw you a quick summary of my thoughts on design management.
Design Management is a historically important development in the relationship between organisations and design. Indeed, I think we can credit Design Management with at least these achievements: 1) make design more visible for organizations; 2) instill a sense in businesses that design is not just an add-on but of core value to the organization; and 3) lead to integrated product development processes that did not exist before. Again, this is my short summary.
Now to the problems that Design Management is facing nowadays: Because Design Management has so successfully focused on the external value of design to an organization (i.e., market differentiation, branding, etc) and on the aspect of managing (i.e. controlling, guiding, containing, etc) design activities, it has created its own cage within the organization. Just think of a large and complex organization. Everything is engineered and optimized and runs “like a machine.” But somewhere in this organization, tucked away from the office cubicles, there is a little green door behind which the creative designers live and work. That is where you find ping-pong tables and palm trees. Design Management ensures that these creative people are happy and can do their best work in their little design island.
With the best intentions, the organization is not taking advantage of design thinking and design methods because it has separated them from the organization itself. Design in this sense is not something that has a role inside of the organization. It is easily dismissed as an activity for external purposes.
This is, again a rather simplified summary of my thoughts on Design Management but really, where I do see the biggest weakness in Design Management is in its inadvertent consequence of limiting design thinking and design methods to creating something that can be sold to someone else. In my view, the organization itself is very much a product of design thinking and design methods and thus subject to continuous “product development.” Thus the title of my EAD06 paper “A New Role for Human-Centered Design Within the Organization.” :) :)
erik Says:
September 6th, 2005 at 23:47Visit erik
Ralph!
I ambsolutely fascinated by the idea of design thinking, and i think your post very clearly points at the tremendous potential of the idea. From my days at the school of industrial design engineering at the technological university of delft, I picked up some habits which I now refer to as design thinking:
1. the ability to diverge and converge at will. Creating options, evaluating them and choosing them, in a constant flow (again that word)
2. continuallly going through a cyclical process of analysis, synthesis (creation), and evaluation (prototyping, testing. And starting all over again.
3. the realisation that the problem is to be juggled around with, and that part of the solution lies in redefining the problem creatively.
4. lateral thinking, connecting things that are initially unconnected and thus coming to new insights.
I think groundbreaking busisness strategy, innovation and branding can come from this kind of thinking.
so: count me in for the design thinking institute, although I agree with Jens that after thought comes action. Maybe ‘design approach’ is a better word.
Erik
brand driven innovation » Blog Archive » design thinking Says:
September 6th, 2005 at 23:55Visit brand driven innovation » Blog Archive » design thinking
[…] I left a comment at Ralph Beuker’s post on Design thinking, because it is a concept that greatly fascinates me. I think -intuitively- that design thinking will be a very influential school of thought in the future, and not only in the design community. We will see it in business strategy, innovation management, brand management, and operations. Why? because it is a way of thinking that combines the right and left half of the brain. The best of both worlds! this is what i coimmented: […]
brand driven innovation » Blog Archive » design thinking Says:
September 7th, 2005 at 16:51Visit brand driven innovation » Blog Archive » design thinking
[…] I left a comment at Ralph Beuker’s post on Design thinking, because it is a concept that greatly fascinates me. I think -intuitively- that design thinking will be a very influential school of thought in the future, and not only in the design community. We will see it in business strategy, innovation management, brand management, and operations. Why? because it is a way of thinking that combines the right and left half of the brain. The best of both worlds! this is what I commented: […]
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