Design Thinking is Killing Creativity

by Brian Ling, 16 October 2010
Design Thinking is Killing Creativity

Hello!My name is BrianI’m a Design Strategist at Design Sojourn

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How it all started?

How it all started?
Published 31 March 2010
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Contents
What is Design Thinking?
What are the Problems of Design Thinking?
How can we Fix Design Thinking

They say, it’s the Best Thing Since…
Image Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/60in3/2338247189/

Everyone is Talking about Design Thinking

There is a shift in the dominant logic of industrial to people orientation. Where improving the quality of life is the new consideration and competitive advantage.

Why Design Thinking?

What is Business Thinking
Business schools tend to focus on inductivethinking (based on directly observable facts) and deductivethinking (logic and analysis, typically based on past evidence)…
Proctor & Gamble CEO A.G. Lafley
Lafley 2008, The Game-Changer: How You Can Drive Revenue and Profit Growth with Innovation Quoted in Business Week 28 July 2008

Design schools emphasize abductive thinking – imagining what could be possible. This new thinking approach helps us challenge assumed constraints and add to ideas, versus discouraging them.
Proctor & Gamble CEO A.G. Lafley
Lafley 2008, The Game-Changer: How You Can Drive Revenue and Profit Growth with Innovation Quoted in Business Week 28 July 2008

Why Design Thinking?
While common methods of thought include deductive and inductive reasoning, Design Thinking embraces these but adds abductivereasoning. Abductive reasoning is effectively embracing a posture of "Why not?", but with a layer of rationale.
Paula Thornton 31 August, 2007. (corante.com)

What are the Problems of Design Thinking?
Image Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/donaldmacleod/4300324861/

Design Thinking is not Design Doing!

Design Thinking is not Design Doing!It has applications beyond objects and into systems.(getting fluffy…)

Design Thinking is a Process (Mess?)

Design Thinking is a Process
They say it’s about:
The User
Iteration
Validation

Design is as much a process as it is an end product. The process should be simple.
Joe Duffy Oct 12, 2009

Designing Interactions
Bill Moggridge

“Squiggle”
Damien Newman 2006

Design Thinking is a Mess
It is very frustrating to talk to several experts with diverging opinions when you are trying to learn about what to you is virgin territory. How can you expect “civilians” to know how to move forward?
Rita Sue reflects on a Talk about Design in Business
Such diversity of opinion about the same subject. No wonder it is such a hard job to explain all this to people in organizations who haven’t a clue.

Design Thinking is a (Confusing) Mindset

Design Thinking Crossed Mountains
Image Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/krayker/3936612610/

Design Thinking Meld Minds
Transcended the “Language” Barrier
Image Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/bamboo-adventure/3530133273/

Design Thinking Meld Minds
…the conversation was about how designers needed to learn the language and culture of business to make managers understand the power of innovation. It was the same conversation I heard a decade ago. The same two dozen company CEOs “get it”, plus a few new ones, and the rest still don’t.
Bruce Nussbaum June 30th 2010, fastcodesign.com

Design Thinking Picked-up Bad Habits
Data to Validate not Predict
Benchmarking the New against the Known
Relying on Business Metrics
Asking People what they Want
Optimizing not Innovating
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bmhkim/4253242349/

Design Thinking Blinded by Science

Design Thinking is Just Thinking
But note that we have had breakthrough ideas and creative thinking throughout recorded history, long before designers entered the scene. When we examine the process in detail, what is being labeled as "design thinking" is what creative people in all disciplines have always done.
Don Norman 25 June, 2010 (core77.com)
The myth? That designers possess some mystical, creative thought process that places them above all others in their skills at creativegroundbreaking thought.

Business Orthodoxies Resist Change

Constraints to Creativity
Common Causes
Accessibility to diversified skills-Lack of expertise and tools and processes- Relationshipwith appropriate partners / suppliers- Collaborative culture is overshadowed by corporatepolitics
People
Ability to fail, and budget for it.- Complacency
- Low cross-functional communication or cooperation- Command-and-control management style
Culture
Distracted with immediate real or perceived crisis (e.g. quarterly results)- Not given compelling case for investment (e.g. marketability, finance,customer loyalty)- New executives or nearing the end of their term
Leadership
Organizational Challenges

Technology
Design
Business
Silos in Corporate Culture

Motorola bucked the industry trend in 2004, by introducing the ultra thin Razr.
Successfully navigated 3 key challenges:
Avoided consensus based decision making
Avoided temptation to layer in additional features
Did not involve phone operators in the development
Geoffrey Frost (Motorola CMO) 4 lesson’s of the Razr:
It was a bet being made, not covered
No compromise was the standard operating procedure – no trade-offs
We did not try to predict the market based on history, we bet if it was good enough it would make its own market
We put the best, brightest, craziest & most passionate people on it
Defying Corporate Gravity – The Razr

Design Thinking as a Happy Meal

Design Thinking as a Happy Meal
Packaged Deployment
Over-emphasis on the process not solution
Bogged down by process
Learnt in Rote
Image Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/tubedesign/2131802450/

Design ~
solutions come from any part of the process
is an iterative activity
has broad guidelines
has no fixed process
Image Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/silverbromide/50079343/

Did Design Thinking Killed Design?
When it required:
Structure
Repeatability
Reliability
Image Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/alexhughson/50151744/

Design Thinking, one of the Many Tools?
Image Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jennbridgens/4651796254/

The Way Humans Think

Sometimes, We are our own worst Enemy

Errors in Reasoning
Source: Wikipedia
A cognitive bias is the human tendency to make systematic errors in certain circumstances based on cognitive factors rather than evidence.

Examples of Errors in Reasoning
Not Invented Here — the tendency to ignore that a product or solution already exists, because its source is seen as an "enemy" or as "inferior".
Outcome bias — the tendency to judge a decision by its eventual outcome instead of based on the quality of the decision at the time it was made.
Status quo bias — the tendency for people to like things to stay relatively the same.
Bandwagon effect — the tendency to do (or believe) things because many other people do (or believe) the same. Related to herd behaviour.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases

How Can We Fix Design Thinking?
Image Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/bitzcelt/4787422150/

For the Record: I’m not against Design Thinking!
Image Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/tearsandrain/2868003710/

Design Thinking is Over-Hyped

The Higher You are, the Harder…
Image Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/racketrx/3884955834/

Design Thinking + Design Doing
Design Thinking cannot really be separated from design doing when the design problem can be characterized as a wicked problem. To be able to generate “creative” solutions you need to have some kind of artistry (Donald Schön’s term), this artistry is acquired through lots of practice (reflection in-action and on-action). A couple of workshop with post-it are just not enough to turn you into a designer.
Ariel Guers (interacciones.org)

Designers think in a very different way than what Design Thinking puts forward. Designers usually consider a “very limited” set of alternatives and develop guiding principles right from the start. They don’t postpone judgment and decision making in order to open-up to new alternatives, they rapidly create a rough (partial) solution (to a partially defined problem) and move forward to see what else they can learn about the problem, through iterations.
Ariel Guers (interacciones.org)

We should remember that designers learn by doing, not by learning and practicing a theory, designing involves a lot more tacit knowledge than in other areas of business. It’s therefore hard to believe that senior managers can change their thinking habits of a lifetime after a workshop or two working with designers. And, to be frank, to suggest as much devalues what designers do.
Roberto Verganti @Core77
(core77.com/blog/featured_items/design_thinkingeverywhere_and_nowhere_reflections_on_the_big_re-think__16277.asp)

A key factor in creating good design that really does make a difference is great designers. These talented individuals are few and far between and provide critical competitive advantage. Let’s forget about Design Thinking as a magic process, and focus on how designers and managers should best work together to deliver great quality outputs.
Roberto Verganti @Core77
(core77.com/blog/featured_items/design_thinkingeverywhere_and_nowhere_reflections_on_the_big_re-think__16277.asp)

Conclusion
Design Thinking has not produced the results the business has been hoping for, and despite the best efforts, design thinking will continue to be something only a few can do well.

Conclusion
This is probably why after half a decade; the companies that are creating innovative products continue to be the usual suspects. The same old brands that have been doing so even before Design Thinking had its day.

So How Can We Fix Design Thinking?
Teach Design Thinking with Design Doing
Focus on solutions and don’t get bogged down by the process
Get acquainted but leave implementing Design Thinking activities to the experts
Call Design Thinking something else

Thank You!
More info at DesignSojourn.com
Email me: brian@designsojourn.com

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Design Thinking is Killing Creativity

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