designthinkinginstitute.com

As written in an earlier posting I’m currently in Washington, DC. I feel very honoured to be one of the speakers being offered the opportunity to share some basic ideas on Design Thinking and how organizations might benefit from this perspective.

I’m happy that I’ve received so many positive replies and people around express their appreciation for the notion that management should definitively accept problem solving more as a task of solving “Paradoxes” rather than “Puzzles”. The open question I’ve posed on how to address the problem in Iraq rather from a paradox perspective than seeing it as a puzzle (rush in -> get rid off Saddam -> install democracy) has stimulated a lively discussion as well.

Since a reasonable number of participants asked for my slides, well you can download them here (in order to achieve an acceptable filesize the logo looks a little bit pixeled ;-( In the PDF you will find many references to the material I’ve used as well as the URL to the fantastic Flash-Video. If you should have any questions or remarks regarding my presentation/PDF feel free to contact me.

Finally you might note that WorldBlu has understood the lesson very well to share content and resources. Accordingly they’ve set up a section on their website with live-blogs from the conference as well as podcasts and photographs. All areas will be filled up with content in the next few days. It’s worth a visit.

And thanks to the team of WorldBlu!

Even though my initial idea was to collect resources in some sort of chronological order I’ve decided to collect and document them as they come. Today Niti Bhan posted a great article in her blog as a response to Victor Lombardi’s idea to frame the idea of design thinking. As I’ve understood his motivation he wants to push the discussion forward in order to be understood by the corporate boardroom as well (Quoted from his blog):

Here’s how I would start framing it…

1. The pace and complexity of 21st century society present formidable challenges that require us to compliment our judgement thinking with an additional way of thinking which is collaborative, abductive, experimental, personal, integrative, and interpretive (replace with your own definition)
2. This way of thinking leads us to do (fill in kinds of actions)
3. These actions benefit companies by (fill in kinds of benefits in a way that impacts profit)
4. The above can be summed up by saying, “(fill in summary in ten words or less)”

Niti Bhan calls herself “A global nomad in liminal space” and her answers to the questions above clearly reflect her global background and perspective. Both postings are worth a reading!

Two weeks ago I’ve conducted a strategy workshop for the post-graduate EURIB Master of Design Management programme in Rotterdam. Frans Joziasse (director at PARK and module co-ordinator at EURIB) is in charge for the module and I think he has assembled a well balanced set of lecturers and practitioners from the design and strategy domain. My role in this context is to introduce students to the basic issues of strategic thinking in order to enable them to frame their current thinking into a more focused perspective on how to integrate strategy more closely into their design thinking.

I usually provide students with a basic set of strategy ‘tools’ (aka ‘models’) with no more than 10 slides (past experiences proved: less is more! ;-). Then I confront them with a non-business case study which you merely would consider as “strategy loaded”. Interestingly I’ve run this workshop with many different groups of students (from graduate to post-graduate and from B-School to D-School) for a couple of years now, but it is always surprising how different the outcomes are. One key insight from this workshop is that by the same token everything which is made by human beings is ‘designed’ (regardless if ‘bad’ or ‘well’) every decision we make is ‘strategic’ (which means that it has an impact on actions and attitudes which refer to others and oneself), but in order to be successful both require a deep understanding of the context they are embedded in.

Anyway, interestingly the ‘design classes’ usually develop far more ‘creative’ solutions than the typical ‘business/MBA’ student. While very often business students are better in addressing framed (numbers & facts) and well formulated problems in contrast design students are better in addressing unframed and open questions by developing a broad set of findings and options. While the latter approach appears to be more attractive to us (the design-management-thinking-… community) each approach has its pros and cons depending on … you bet: context!

Therefore (and I’m returning now to the afternoon session of the workshop from above) I was happy to meet the afternoon lecturer Leonard Zijlstra, Manager at the “Strategy Academy” in Rotterdam as well. Zijlstra is one of the co-authors of the highly acclaimed textbook:Strategy: Process, Context, Content by Bob de Wit & Ron Meyer. While I’ve used their book in strategy courses some years ago I must admit that I highly appreciate being re-loaded by Zijlstra since his/their insights provided me with many new ideas about the concept of ‘Design Thinking’ and how to load it with viewpoints from both the design and the business world.

Anyway I think their book is different from other textbooks, because their offer is not about a set of guidelines and tools which guarantee success, but rather about enabling the reader to deal with what they call ‘Strategy Tension’. ‘Strategy Tension’ occurs when apparent opposites can be identified and the best example for this in the context of Design Management is the tension between ‘Logic versus Creativity’. Without going into further details I assume we all agree that creativity sometimes demands/requires non-logic approaches in order to discover new ideas while logic is very often achieved by eliminating issues of ambiguity and bias. I will explain later on how to deal with this ‘Paradox’.

You will (certainly) agree that context (now I’m back on track ;-) in terms of the world we’re living in today is highly characterised by the above mentioned ‘Tensions’. These tensions occur on various levels of our lives e.g. personal (stay home or go out), business (make or buy) or political (freedom vs. control). Even though we would like to reject it very often we are still tempted by the tension of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’, but we are learning more and more that there are is no clear ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ any longer. In contrast the only successful approach to address fast changing contexts is to develop context driven ‘adaptive’ solutions and as a consequence this requires a different mindset and accordingly problem solving tools.

And this is what I really like about the de Wit & Meyer reader. They’ve identified 4 general perspectives on how to address “Strategy Tensions”. Interestingly these perspectives are not limited to strategy, but can be applied to ‘problem solving’ in general as well. According to the authors you should approach problems by:

a) Seeing them as a puzzle: Once you have understood the complexity of a problem by identifying the edges and borders you discover how pieces go together.

b) Considering them as a dilemma: You have two possible solutions where neither of which is logically the best. Each solution has its advantages and disadvantages, but you have to accept the incompatibility of the opposites. However by making yourself aware of a dilemma situation/problem makes it easier for you to accept either of your choices since you’ve analysed the opposite as well.

c) Seeing them as a trade-off: In contrast to the dilemma above in this case you have many possible and acceptable solutions between two opposites. By accepting a problem as a trade-off you are seeking to find the best of the possible solutions. By doing so you make yourself aware that with a different emphasis you might have achieved a different but equally acceptable solution.

d) Accepting them as a paradox: “A paradox is a situation in which two seeming contradictory, or even mutually exclusive, factors appear to be true at the same time” (citation from de Wit & Meyer). While the latter three approaches have one or more definitive solutions a paradox (at least at first sight) prevents you from gaining an acceptable answer from two logically inconsistent opposites. A paradox has no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ answer; you have to strive for the best as possible.

While de Wit & Meyer have chosen to see ‘strategy tensions’ as ‘strategy paradoxes’ (and they explain it very well why) I see all four approaches being valid for design processes and ‘Design Thinking’. Having stated this I clearly owe you some examples on these approaches. As my blog friend Michael Wagner always writes ‘my mind is racing’ I have to admit: Mine as well while writing these lines!!!

For the moment let my just brainstorm what kind of further ‘research’ these ideas might stimulate:

– How are design problems best characterised? Are there any specific agglomerations in either of these four approaches regarding design problems?

– How do these insights apply to product, graphic, new media design? Does each discipline have to tackle with a different set of issues/problems?

– Are there any specific methodologies the design discipline has developed in order to deal particularly with paradoxical problems?

– Is there a correlation between successful product or service solutions in the market and being considered as a ‘paradoxical problem’ prior to market launch?

Beside all this good stuff being written currently about ‘Design Thinking’ I dare to state that this perspective might add some value to the discussion. What do you think?

What is this blog and the “Design Thinking Institute” (DTI) about?

Well, this new blog has been on my agenda for a while now. I’ve been reflecting on the name, content and format ever since I’ve read about the term ‘Design Thinking’. I’ve somehow felt attracted to the topic by the believe (of myself and others out there) that the impact of Design can go beyond ‘simply’ creating a visual design for products or services. There must something more in the application of ‘Design’ for organisations who recognise that ‘Design’ starts far earlier in the value chain of organisational activities. My perspective on ‘Design Thinking’ is to uncover this ‘value chain’ in a generic way by collecting as much data, insights and cases as possible in order to create a bigger picture rather than a precise definition.

Consequently the organisational structures, systems and culture which enable companies to deliver great designed products and services (or as Steve Jobs calls them ‘insanely great products’) are equally important. However from the classical MBA perspective Design is only one issue among many others like Marketing, Finance, Controlling, Strategy, HR, etc. Fortunately in the meantime some of these disciplines consider Design as a variable for achieving competitive advantage more than others and I’m happy that my professional field “Strategic Management” does consider Design as a valuable resource and capability for a while now.

As said above a first step in the creation of the ‘Design Thinking Institute’ is to collect as many ‘data’ as possible on this platform. Thanks to a conversation I’ve had with Niti Bhan a while ago she framed this approach by suggesting the following steps: Collect, Consolidate, Collaborate. While this approach is not revolutionary and might occur in many contexts beside ‘design processes’ I still believe that in this case the element of ‘creative identification’ dominates over the ‘deductive method’ you see in classical scientific research. Consequently I see the process of formation of the ‘Institute’ as a way of ‘Design Thinking’.

Why an ‘Institute’ and why on a separate site?

I’ve chosen the metaphor of an ‘Institute’ because I’ve felt inspired by classical research institutes. According to my understanding an ‘Institute’ is a place where many people work on shared field of interest from a multitude of perspectives. ‘Researchers’ might join the ‘Institute’ for a specific time in order to work intensively on their specific topic and they leave the ‘Institute’ and share their results with the community. An ‘Institute’ is a place where a topic or field of research can be explored beside the various daily constraints people are confronted with. While the value of an ‘Institute’ is created by the members (let them be temporary or permanent) and their contributions an ‘Institute’ is not necessarily owned by a ‘principal’. Formal leadership is executed by individuals who temporarily take a formal position. This position might the result of a democratic election process or other means. However currently I see no need for such a formal representation rather than a need for as many ‘researchers’ as possible contributing to develop the field.

One reason to move this thinking to the platform “designthinkinginstitute.com” is that there are so many places on the web where you will find great sketches and ideas on ‘Design Thinking’. Therefore this forum and blog shall bring together all these various place by collecting links and create a hub from where you can start and end your discovery journey. Finally the ‘Institute’ enables me to separate my personal thoughts on Vol. 2: design-management.de from the more collaborative process on this site.

So what is ‘Design Thinking’?

Well, to be honest: I don’t know yet! I have an idea or a glimpse from all my reading on the web (please see my thoughts in the first paragraph above), but I did not discover a clear pattern yet. Furthermore as an individual it’s not my goal to become the authority in this field. I feel more like becoming a facilitator and as said above I see this forum as a platform which I want to offer and share with those interested in the field. One of the responsibilities I’ve identified for myself is to deliver a series of postings with links which ‘Collect’ the multitude of smart thinking out there. You can support the ‘Institute’ by sending links to resources I didn’t list yet or should definitively list. Furthermore you might want to become a ‘researcher’ with guest blogger rights on this site. Feel free to drop me a note by Email to: ralf@designthinkinginstitute.com.

What’s next?

While this platform and the Institute are representations of a virtual space & organisation so far the creators of CPH127 with Hans Henrik at the lead initiated to hold a summit on design + Innovation in spring 2006 in Copenhagen. While content, format, location and date are still issues in progress this event might be a good opportunity to a) work on formulating some kind of manifesto about the DTI and its mission, vision and future development and b) get names to faces since I hope that many of people from the community will join the summit either virtually or physically.

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 ;-)

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)