designthinkinginstitute.com

It seems that the closer we come to Christmas posting frequency goes down not only at Vol.2: design-management.de. Therefore I’ve decided to take a short, intended “hiatus” and concentrate on some urgent work to be completed before Christmas as well as on recharging my batteries ;-) Consequently expect new, fresh postings in January 2006. However I still might do some sporadic del.icio.us postings.

Ever since I’ve started this blog in mid 2003, 2005 has been the year where both visitors numbers and posting frequency lifted-off. In particular site visits boosted since I’ve invested in a major redesign of the blog (follow this link for a sample of Vol.1 of the blog) in combination with a switch from MovableType to WordPress. Credits for triggering the back end system switch go to an Ex-MA Design Management student of mine, Eric Roscam Abbing who started blogging about his dissertation project this year (Eric recently promised to update his blog about the outcome of his dissertation ;-). Eric will also be a guest blogger on this blog in the near future (hopefully) reporting about brand driven innovation.

Furthermore credits also go to Oliver Thylmann (also an Ex-MBA student of mine from 2003 who completed his Open University MBA this year as well) who’s been one of the first bloggers I’ve met. Even though we’re not communicating on a regular basis we exchange emails from time to time and Oliver has always encouraged me to continue this blog! Needless to say that I highly recommend reading his blog on daily issues around blogging and the web.

This year has also been the year where I’ve made lots of real and virtual blog friends. I’d like to name just a few here in chronological order (regular blog readers know these names already). All of them have contributed to the blog either by guest posting or providing feedback. My special thanks go to all of you! And in case I should have missed someone please drop me a note immediately and I will add you to this list ;-)

• Hans-Henrik H. Heming and his cabin crew from “CPH127.com”
• Niti Bhan from “Perspective”
• Chris Gee from “ThePreparedMind.com”
• Steve Portigal from “All this chittah-chattah”
• Mike Wagner from “White Rabbit Group”
• Jörg Walters from “Jörg Walters Design Management”
• Sabine Junginger, from the US and a Guest Blogger on Vol. 2
• Jens Hilgenstock from “Sachlichkeit”
• Traci Fenton from “WorldBlu”
• Toby Coop from “WildWildBusiness.com”
• Dominic Basulto from FORTUNE “BusinessInnovation2005”

Personally this Blog has also opened new business opportunities while some of them are not be ready for release yet. However one client who has demonstrated a visionary understanding of the value of blogs is the Zollverein School of management & design in Essen/Germany. Their president, Prof. Bruder invited me to set-up and write a blog on their remarkable SummerSchool 2005. Currently I’m also working on their “regular” blog to be released in January 2006. Thanks for giving me the opportunity to start such an unusual and exciting project where I’ve met so many skilled people!

In October I’ve started this project which has opened doors as well (and which I’ve neglected for some weeks): The designthinkinginstitute.com. Getting back in touch with those of you who have already registered for a free membership at the institute is on the top of my priority list for 2006!

In the context of the designthinkinginstitute.com blog special credits go to Traci Fenton (and Mike Wagner who’s introduced me to her) for inviting me to talk on “Design Thinking and Collaborative Creation” at the WorldBlu Forum 2005 in Washington, D.C. This conference has been an incredible experience also because I’ve spoken to a “non design related” audience who are somehow far more open for an unbiased dialogue on terms and definitions than the core experts circles. Beside this the diversity of speakers and participants has been impressive ranging from political leaders like the representative of the Iraqi Prime Minister, Dr. Bashar Al-Naher over the guru of right-brain thinking, Dan Pink to all the skilled volunteers Traci has been able to attract. I would wish I could have framed all the (also emotionally touching) impressions in words …

Furthermore, my last trip for this year brought me to Paris where I’ve been invited to join Toby Coop (at that time member of Krauthammer International) and his peers. Toby Coop is a regular reader of Vol.2: design-management.de and by late October he’s thought that time has come to meet in person. Together with a group of people like Marijn Gijsbers and Eric Hooftman among others Toby arranged an executive kick-off meeting for their project “University of the Mind”. Toby writes about the idea of the “University of the Mind” on the blog which I’ve helped them to set up on the very afternoon prior to the event and which will move to its own platform soon next year. I feel proud to be part of this endeavour for three reasons: a) I love the idea to think of education in terms of body & mind which form an indivisible unit; b) The whole project is business not esoteric oriented c) All people involved are experts in their field while being completely open to exploring new roads. After all these have been two exciting days on a boat on the Seine river which will definitively have a lasting impact on the things to come in 2006. I wish Toby and his group all the best with their upcoming trip to the Kalachakra 2006 where they will inform HH, the Dalai Lama about the plans of the “University of the Mind”.

Finally and certainly due to the experiences I’ve been able to make with this blog for the last 2,5 years DMI has accepted my proposal for conducting a Leadership Forum at the 10th European Conference on Design Management. In particular special thanks go to the Earl Powell, President of DMI who resigns from this post in 2006 after being with the DMI for 20 years. Earl has supported me in many ways throughout the years ever since I’ve entered the Design Management community in 1997. I wish him well for the remaining projects he has identified for himself.

Last but not least I’d like to thank you, all the regular readers (numbers vary from 3.500 to 25.000 per month depending on the metrics you use ;-) of this blog for your attention and sometimes feedback you provide via the comments function. I hope you will stay loyal readers in 2006 as well (either by subscribing via FeedBlitz [right hand section on top of this blog] or via Bloglines) and I appreciate any note/feedback/request you drop to my email account at: blog@design-management.de

Happy Holidays and all the best to you all for the upcoming year 2006!

Ever since I’ve returned from the WorldBlu forum in Washington, DC I’ve wanted to do some updates in this site. However keeping two blogs alive is not that easy and today I would like to share some ideas around this project with you.

As written in my other blog David Weinberger gave the opening presentation of the WorldBlu forum. His ideas and stage performance have been far too interesting for simply listening 50% while spending the other 50% on live blogging (Therefore I rather wait for the WorldBlu online documentation to be released (hopefully) soon ;-). In any case one of the key points he’s addressed has been the democratic power of blogs as a means of transparent and self-regulatory freedom of expression.

As I’ve expressed in my initial postings I see this current development phase as the stage of collecting the diverse definitions and ideas about ‘Design Thinking’. Being inspired by the term ‘Organizational Democracy’ I’ve decided that for the phase of “Collecting Ideas and Viewpoints” I will open the blog to the public. Even though I see this step as highly experimental I think it’s worth a try and I haven’t seen this in the blogoshpere so far.

Getting access to the blog interface which enables you to publish postings is very easy:

• Go to the lower right hand side of the blog. The section is called ‘META’ and click on ‘Register’
• Provide a ‘Username’ and a valid Email address
• A password with be email to this account and from now on you have access to the blogging back-end of the institute which enables you to write and publish your own ideas on ‘Design Thinking’ on this blog

So far all contributions to the concept or approach or meta-concept ‘Design Thinking’ are welcome. Theses can be your own ideas as well as references to other sites which publish information about ‘Design Thinking’.

One of the rewards for you personally will be that you will be listed with your name and website on the blog and hopefully gain (even ;-) more recognition and credibility in the blogoshpere. You might also get inspired and motivated to start your own blog and I’ll be happy to support with my advice on such a project.

So please spread the news and provide feedback to blog@designthinkinginstitute.com if you have any suggestions on this project!

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!

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)