2. What is Innovation?
• The word “innovation” is derived from the Latin verb innovare, which
means to renew. In essence, the word has retained its meaning up until
today.
• Innovation means to improve or to replace something, for example, a
process, a product, or a service. In the context of companies, however, the
term needs a definition. In the complex context of business, a definition is
needed.
• Innovation is a process by which a domain, a product, or a service is
renewed and brought up to date by applying new processes,
introducing new techniques, or establishing successful ideas to create
new value.
3. Why is innovation so important?
• To promote digital innovations
• To overcome the challenges of digital change.
• Innovation requires a higher degree of creativity than the operative
business and a clear innovation strategy, especially in the phase of the so
called “fuzzy front end of innovation“.
• Concepts like lean innovation and the establishment of community-
based innovation networks become increasingly relevant.
• Companies are using modern idea management software and
innovation management software to manage innovation efficiently.
4. The Right Mindset for Innovation
Innovation requires more creativity and more willingness to take risks than the
implementation of typical projects. To successfully realize innovation projects, a
different mindset is needed.
Break the rules!
With traditional approaches and conventional methods, you will often not get
anywhere in the field of innovation. Challenge the status quo consistently! And
explore new paths off the beaten track.
5. Collect ideas everywhere!
Innovation projects constantly need
new ideas: To overcome obstacles, to
change concepts, and to optimize strategies.
Believe in the impossible!
Imagine how your innovation will look
like in reality. And believe that you will
be able to overcome all obstacles on the way
to realization.
6. Put together an innovation team of
individuals with different
Innovation needs the diversity of various competencies
and diverse ways of thinking.
7. Types of Innovation?
•Organizational innovation: Organizational innovations affect the process and organizational
structure. These can be organizational process innovations or management innovations, e. g.
new tools for measuring customer satisfaction or optimizing delivery processes to reduce costs.
With Windows Vista, the company had gotten lost in
the complexity trap, constant coordination had made
development more and more complicated. Microsoft
responded with organizational innovation.
“ Good design is the most important way to differentiate us
from our competitors,”
Samsung has implemented a special type of organizational
innovation in the Design Centers: Managers were trained in
innovation leadership. This style is different from the one at
headquarters.
8. Organizational Innovation
Organizational innovation refers to the development of a new organizational strategy
that will somehow change a company’s business practices, as well as the way its
workplace is organized and its relationship with external stakeholders.
•Examples of organizational innovations: The first companies adopting a four-
day week working schedule of only 4 days per week
•The first companies that started to use the power of digital and allowing employees to
skip the office and work from home (depending on the role)
9. Process Innovation
Process innovation is about implementing a new or improved production or delivery
approach, including changes in operational methods, the techniques used and the
equipment or software.
•Examples of process innovations:
•The first firms betting on SaaS (software as a service) technology, and using, for
instance, cloud contact centers from Talkdesk, changed the way their customer
support processes used to be organized
•The first hotels that decided to make decisions based on big data using, for instance,
insights from the Climber Hotel, made changes on their decision-making approach
10. •Product Innovation
•Product innovation is the introduction of a new or improved good or service. These
inventions or changes may have to do with improving technical specifications, the
materials or the software used or even advancing on UX (user experience). However,
product innovations don’t need to improve all functions or performance specifications.
An improvement to or addition of a new function can also be merged with a loss of
other functions or the downgrade of some other specifications.
Moreover, a product innovation must add available to potential users but doesn’t
necessarily need to generate sales.
•Examples of product innovations:
•Lego has been changing the materials of its famous bricks to biodegradable oil-
based plastics
•The first electric vehicles introduced in the car’s market were also an
innovation, and new batteries with longer ranges that keep coming out are also an
example of innovation
11. •Product innovation: Products concern both material products and intangible services
such as services that meet customer needs and are thus acquired by the customer. With
product innovations, a company earns its money and tries to differentiate itself from the
competition.
•Example:-
•Electric and gas lawn mower.
•GPS in cars.
•Cell phone pairing in cars.
•LED light bulbs.
•Infrared cookers.
•Waterproof cell phones.
12. Marketing Innovation
•Marketing innovation means developing a new marketing strategy that produces
changes in, for instance, the way a product is designed or packed, or even other
decisions regarding price or promotion.
•Example of marketing innovation:
•Haagen Dazs’ new waste-free container
13. WHY INNOVATION IS IMPORTANT?
1. Creative Development – Qualities of innovative nature are essential for new businesses today.
You can achieve growth by learning how to be creative. You need to learn this business skill to
help make things of value from your creativeness. When you have this business skill you will find
that it opens up all kinds of opportunities and gives you the potential for a new market and helps
you to keep up with the current trends.
2. Continuous Improvement – Innovation gives organizational sustainability when you are
making continual improvements and repackaging and re-branding. Any good manager will
recognize the need to innovate and grows the business skills to increase their creativity.
3.Reinforce Your Brand – Development branding is popular in organizational leadership.
This process reveals information to help leaders to learn other ways to be more innovative. It is
important because it is recognized as one of the main drivers for success. It gives organizational
sustainability such as brand maintenance.
4. Making the Most of What You Have Already – It is not all about creating a new product or
service which you can sell, but you also need to focus on your existing business procedures to
improve your efficiency, find some new customers, increase your profits and cut down on the
amount of your waste. When you are continually innovating and improving on the practices of
your business you will likely also attract better staff and keep more of your existing staff. This is
detrimental to the health and performance of your business in the long-term.
14. 5. Responding to Competition and Trends – Innovation can help you to see what exists now in
opportunities or which ones will likely pop up in the near future. Businesses which are successful
don’t only respond to the current needs of their customers, but usually predict the future trends and
come up with an idea, service or product that can meet the future demand quickly and effectively. In
this way you can stay ahead of your competition as trends, technology or markets shift.
6. Having a Unique Selling Point – Generally, consumers will see innovation as something
which adds value to products or a company. When this is used the right way, it can give you an
advantage commercially, especially in a market that is saturated or shifting rapidly. It can get your
more positive exposure in the media and your customers will be more willing to pay the extra
money for something that is well-designed and new, rather than picking the less exciting and
cheaper rival.
7. The Use of Social Media – Including the use of social media in your innovation campaign is
great for managing, motivating and getting focused in your business. When you use it in your
business, you are drawing ideas from a wide range of people on the social networks, giving you
a successful outlet to find new ideas for your business. You can also use social networks to see
what customers are saying about your services, products or company. In business today, we need to
be innovators now more than ever. Each business and organization is feeling the impact of
globalization, technological and knowledge revolutions, migration and climate change issues.
Innovation can bring the added value you need to your business plus widen your employment base.
It is detrimental for the quality and growth of your business.
15. What is creativity?
Creativity “is a fundamental feature of human intelligence in general.It is
grounded in everyday capacities such as the associationof
ideas,reminding,perception ,analogical thinking ,searching a structured problem-
space, & reflecting self-criticism.It involves not only a cognitive dimension (the
generation of new ideas) but also motivation & emotion, & is closely linked to
culutral context & personality factors.”
16. What is Creativity?
The generation of imaginative new ideas(Newell & Shaw 1972), involving a radical
newness innovation or solution to a problem& a radical reformulation of problems.
•A creative solution, either new or recombined , must have value (Higgins 1999).
•The production of novel & useful ideas (Amabile et al, 1996:1155)
Three reasons why people are motivated to be creative:
•need for novel, varied, and complex stimulation
•need to communicate ideas and values
•need to solve problems
•Creativity is the act of turning new and imaginative ideas into reality. Creativity is
characterised by the ability to perceive the world in new ways, to find hidden patterns,
to make connections between seemingly unrelated phenomena, and to generate
solutions. Creativity involves two processes: thinking, then producing.
•“Creativity is the process of bringing something new into being. Creativity requires passion
and commitment. It brings to our awareness what was previously hidden and points to new
life. The experience is one of heightened consciousness: ecstasy.
•NOTE:- If you have ideas but don’t act on them, you are imaginative but not creative.
17. Can creativity be learned?
•Creativity begins with a foundation of knowledge, learning a discipline, and mastering
a way of thinking. You can learn to be creative by experimenting, exploring,
questioning assumptions, using imagination and synthesizing information. Learning to
be creative is a kin to learning a sport. It requires practice to develop the right muscles and
a supportive environment in which to flourish.
•Your ability to generate innovative ideas is not merely a function of the mind, but also a
function of five key behaviours that optimize your brain for discovery:
1.Associating: drawing connections between questions, problems, or ideas from unrelated
fields
2.Questioning: posing queries that challenge common wisdom
3.Observing: scrutinizing the behavior of customers, suppliers, and competitors to identify
new ways of doing things
4.Networking: meeting people with different ideas and perspectives
5.Experimenting: constructing interactive experiences and provoking unorthodox
responses to see what insights emerge
For example you can make comparisons between your company and others outside of your
industry. Questions I ask my clients’ teams in advance of our creativity and innovation
ideation sessions are:What companies do you most admire and why? What are they doing
that you could adopt or adapt to your own company?
18. Creativity can be considered as:
• A Result of New
• Compared to the current ideas
• Rather its Useful,& adding value
or not
A process of :
• Presentation
• Preparation
• Brainstorming
• Validation of ideas
• Outcome of assessment
19. Five Steps to Creative Thinking
Stage 1: Preparation
The creative process begins with preparation: gathering information and materials, identifying
sources of inspiration, and acquiring knowledge about the project or problem at hand. This is
often an internal process (thinking deeply to generate and engage with ideas) as well as an external
one (going out into the world to gather the necessary data, resources, materials, and expertise).
Stage 2: Incubation
Next, the ideas and information gathered in stage 1 marinate in the mind. As ideas slowly simmer,
the work deepens and new connections are formed. During this period of germination, the artist
takes their focus off the problem and allows the mind to rest. While the conscious mind
wanders, the unconscious engages in what Einstein called “combinatory play”: taking diverse ideas
and influences and finding new ways to bring them together.
Stage 3: Illumination
Next comes the elusive aha moment. After a period of incubation, insights arise from the deeper
layers of the mind and break through to conscious awareness, often in a dramatic way. It’s the
sudden Eureka! that comes when you’re in the shower, taking a walk, or occupied with something
completely unrelated. Seemingly out of nowhere, the solution presents itself.
Stage 4: Verification
Following the aha moment, the words get written down, the vision is committed to paint or clay, the
business plan is developed. Whatever ideas and insights arose in stage 3 are fleshed out and
developed. The artist uses critical thinking and aesthetic judgment skills to hone and refine the work
and then communicate its value to others.
20. Types of creativity
According to Boden(1998), there are three main types of creativity, involving different
ways of generating the novel ideas
a)The “combinational” creativity that involves new combiantions of familiar ideas.
Is the process of combining old ideas to come up with something new.
Example:-
Juicy Salif” product below was designed by Philippe Starck by combining the idea of a
lemon squeezer and a dish of squids he ordered at a waterfront restaurant.
Journalist comparing a politician/terrorist with a deadly animal
-Requires rich store of knowledge.
-Valued only if some link is found between them.
21. b) The “exploratory” creativity that involves the generation of new ideas by the
exploration of structured concepts.
The counter -intuitive results due to Einatein's Theory of Relativity are due to
systematic explorations based on two fundamental laws:
The Principle of Relativity.
The Principle of Invariant Speed of light
c) The “transformational”creativity that involves the transformation of some
dimension of the structure,so that new structures can be generated.
Eg -E=mc2
22. Individual creativity
•Studies focused on measuring creativity & trying to link it with personality traits or
cognitive traits.
•It investigates what personality factors (experience, attraction to complexity ,high
energy,autonomy ,intutions,self-confidence & ability to resolve contradications ) can
affect the performance.
•Intrinsec motivation & knowledge are also playing big role in generating creativity.
Example:-Organizational creativity is ideas or innovations attributed to a group of people
that all work for the same organization.
23. Group creativity
•Group compostition:-diveristy,up to a certain point , is beneficial for the group.
•Group processes- democratic & collborative leadership, an organic structure,problem
solving approaches & a solid based social information.
•Group charaterisctics: good cohesive groups that have worked together for a time ,(if
these factors are excessive, creativity decrease).
•Contextual influences - eg ,organizational culture, reward systems.
24. Organizational creativity
•3 models in organizational creativity
•Amabile model(1988) a firm innovates if it motivates employees, provides resources &
manages the work environment accordingly.'
•Ekvall model(1996) based on a creative environment that has as inlfuence on the results
of the company.
•Interactionist model Woodman et. al(1993) approaches creativity as a phenomenon that
is affected by situational & behavioral factors in particular,the model recognizes
intraorganizational influences that stimulateor inhibit organizational creativity.
25. What is the difference between the two, and how does one begin to
innovate?
•Creativity is the capability or act of conceiving something original or unusual,” while
“Innovation is the implementation of something new.” Every invention, Sloane
argues, is an innovation, because it is an implementation of a novel idea.
•Innovation is creativity mobilized for action.
•When a person has an idea, they’re being creative; when they use that idea on their
next sales call, they’re being innovative.
•Innovation requires creativity to be possible, and creativity requires innovation to be
useful.
27. Let’s identify some ways to increase our innovation, with creativity in mind.
“Your perceptions may limit your reasoning.”
•We can become trapped in our own perspectives, and gaining input from others can help
us see clearly. It’s a sort of implementation-focused replication of Clear’s fifth step,
which stressed asking for feedback.
•“Treat patterns as part of the problem.”
•Don’t repair dogmatic or rigid methods or hardware with inflexible solutions. Use the
creative process to avoid old ways of thought and come up with truly novel solutions.
•“Come up with ideas at the beginning of the innovation process… and then stop.”
•Remember that to innovate, you have to implement. Don’t waste time and potentially
freeze yourself with a multitude of ideas—focus on the ones that are truly in the running
for execution.
•Innovation and creativity are both dependent on a process of allowing non-standard
thinking and ideas to swirl in the mind. Of course, the creative moment is more
experimental than the innovative, but the principle’s the same: you have to be open-
minded.
•Reaching an open-minded place can sometimes be difficult in business. The rules and
systems in place were not added haphazardly, and changing them can feel like a major
undertaking.
30. Evolution of Design Thinking
1969: Herbert Simon and “The Sciences Of The Artificial”
1973: Horst Rittel and “wicked problems”
1991: The birth of IDEO
1992: Richard Buchanan and “Wicked Problems In Design
Thinking”
2005: Design Thinking as a university subject
31. THE CONNECTION BETWEEN CREATIVITY AND
INNOVATION
•Creativity is centered on idea generation & innovation emphasizes idea
implementation , creativity is often seen as the first step of innovation
•Creativity can exist without innovation.
Example:-
•When a professor asks a student to write custom essays, they must be creative.
They need a unique thesis statement. Although the arguments will be based on
research, they should expose the student’s own point of view. However, the
student is not inventing a new format of an academic paper, style of writing, or
anything else that didn’t already exist. Unless they expose an idea that is literally
going to change the world, they are just being creative. And that’s okay.
•Innovation, however, cannot exist without creativity. Creativity is its starting
point. Before Nikola Tesla became an inventor, he was a creative thinker. He
accumulated a large base of knowledge, and he managed to combine it with
his imagination, so that he would come down to the unique outcome.
32. THREE LEVELS OF CREATIVITY
1. CREATIVITY /DISCOVERY
•This is the moment when the creative person comes to a discovery. It’s a genuine idea that
may come unexpectedly, but may also be the result of a lengthy thought process. For
example, you get an idea to create a product that fills a gap in the market. The need for
creativity will not stop at this point. It’s the thread that connects the entire process.
2. INVENTION
•Invention is creativity brought to a higher level. For example, Mark Zuckerberg’s creative
idea led to Facebook. But this is often something that would’ve still happened. If Zuckerberg
didn’t create Facebook, someone else would have created something similar. If you don’t fill
in this market gap, someone else eventually will.
3. CREATION
•Now, this is the highest form of creativity. Mozart created music no one else would’ve
created. When you relate creation to business, it’s something that only your organization is
capable of. Even if the company does not reach this point, it may still be successful.
Innovation, however, is necessary for a business to thrive.
33. What is Design thinking ?
•“Design thinking is a human centered & collaborative apporach to problem
solving,using a designed mindset to solve complex problems.”
•.....Tim Brown (British Industrial Designer& President of IDEO)
•Design thinking is a design methodology that provides a solution- based approach to
solving problems.It's extremely useful in tackling complex problem that are ill-defined or
unknown,by understanding the human needs involved,by re-framing the problem in
human -centric ways, by creating many ideas in brainstorming sessions,and by adopting
a hands-on approach in prototyping & testing.
34. What is Design thinking
•Design thinking is an iterative process in which we seek to
•understand the user
•challenge assumptions
•redefine problems
in an attempt to
• identify alternative strategies & solutions that might not be instantly apparent
with our initial level of understanding.
• At the same time, Design thinking provides a solution-based appproach to solving
problems.It is away of thinking & working as well as a collection of hands-on
methods.
38. 5 Stages in Design Thinking Process
•Stage 1: Empathize—Research Your Users' Needs
•Here, you should gain an empathetic understanding of the problem you’re trying
to solve, typically through user research. Empathy is crucial to a human-centered
design process such as design thinking because it allows you to set aside your
own assumptions about the world and gain real insight into users and their needs.
•Stage 2: Define—State Your Users' Needs and Problems
•It’s time to accumulate the information gathered during the Empathize stage.
You then analyze your observations and synthesize them to define the core
problems you and your team have identified. These definitions are called problem
statements. You can create personas to help keep your efforts human-centered
before proceeding to ideation.
•Stage 3: Ideate—Challenge Assumptions and Create Ideas
•Now, you’re ready to generate ideas. The solid background of knowledge from
the first two phases means you can start to “think outside the box”, look for
alternative ways to view the problem and identify innovative solutions to the
problem statement you’ve created. Brainstorming is particularly useful here..
39. •Stage 4: Prototype—Start to Create Solutions
•This is an experimental phase. The aim is to identify the best possible solution
for each problem found. Your team should produce some inexpensive, scaled-
down versions of the product (or specific features found within the product) to
investigate the ideas you’ve generated. This could involve simply paper
prototyping.
•Stage 5: Test—Try Your Solutions Out
•Evaluators rigorously test the prototypes. Although this is the final phase, design
thinking is iterative: Teams often use the results to redefine one or more further
problems. So, you can return to previous stages to make further iterations,
alterations and refinements – to find or rule out alternative solutions.
40. EMPATHIZE
•Empathy is the centerpiece of a human-centered design process .The Empathize mode is
the work you do to understand people,within the context of your design challenge.
•Learn about the audience for whom you are designing, by observation & interview.
•Who is my user?
•what matters to this person?
“To create meaningful innovations,you need to know your users
& care about their live.”
41. DEFINE
•The Define mode of the design process is all about bringing clarity & focus to the
design space.
•It is your chance,& responsibility, as a design thinker to define the challenge you are taking
on,based on what you have learned about your user & about the context.
•Create a point of view that is based on user needs & insights.
•What are their needs?
“Framing the right problem is the only way to create the right
solution.”
42. Define
•Synthesise your observation from empathize stage.
•Define meaningful & actionable problem statement.
•Define tools'
•Point of view-user ,need,& insight
•How Might We?-Ideation & question as assumption
•Why-how -ladder- Needs- Why?- why- How(to address the needs)
43. IDEATE
•Ideate is the mode of the design process in which you concentrate on idea generation.
•Mentally it represents a process of “going wide”in terms of cocepts & outcomes.
•Ideation provides both the fuel & also the source material for building protoypes & getting
innovative solutions into hands of your users.
•Brainstorms & come up with as many creative solutions as possible.
•Wild idea encouraged!
•To explore a wide solution space.
How to ideate ?
transition from idetifying problems to exploring solutions.
“It's not about coming up with the 'right' idea, it’s about
generating the broadest range of possibilties”
44. PROTOTYPE
•The prototype mode is the iterative generation of artifacts intended to answer questions
thaat get you closer to your final solution.
•Ideate & problem-solve
•Communicate.
•Start a conversation
•Fail quickly & cheaply
•Test possibilities.
•Manage the solution-building process.
45. TEST
•The test mode is when you solicit feedback ,about the prototypes you have created,from
your users & have another opportunity to gain empathy for the peopleyou are designing
for.
•Refine prototypes & solutions.
•learn more about your users.
•Refine your POV.
“Testing is an opportunity to learn about your solution & your
user.”
46. Phases of Design Thinking
•Frame a Question—Identify a driving question that inspires others to search for
creative solutions.
•Gather Inspiration—Inspire new thinking by discovering what people really need.
•Generate Ideas—Push past obvious solutions to get to breakthrough ideas.
•Make Ideas Tangible—Build rough prototypes to learn how to make ideas better.
•Test to Learn—Refine ideas by gathering feedback and experimenting forward.
•Share the Story—Craft a human story to inspire others toward action.
Note- When done right, design thinking will help you understand the mindsets and
needs of the people you're creating for, surface opportunities based on these needs,
and lead you to innovative new solutions starting with quick, low-fidelity
experiments that provide learning.
47. Ways to Get Started with Design Thinking
•1. Gather Insights by Practicing Empathy, Observation, and
Interviewing
•2. Build Scrappy Prototypes to Learn About Unmet Needs
•3. Turn Problems into Questions
•4. Use Research to Understand the Past, Present, and
Future
49. Empathize tools
Assume a beginner's mindset
Ask What -How-Why
Ask 5 W
Empathy map
Conduct interviews with empathy
Build emapthy with analogies
Use photo & video user-based studies
Use personal photo & video journals
Engage with extreme users
story share & capture
brain storm
create journey maps
50. Empathize - Beginers mindset
•design with fresh eye
•Dont judge
•question everything
•be truly curious
•find patterns
Ask What-How--Why
Ask 5W
problem
attention to logic & effect
access the process not people
why from the customer point of view.
53. Empathize -Conduct interview with empathy
•Ask W
•Never say “usually” when asking a question.
•Ask questions neutrally & don't suggest answer
54. Empathize -Build emapthy with analogies
•Use analogy to gain a fresh way of looking at an environment, & in instances where
direct observation is hard to achieve.
•start by indentifying the aspects of situation that are most important , interresting or
problematic.
•Find other experiences that contain some of these aspects
55. Empathize -Use photo & video user-based studies
•Use video recordings of users perforzming their regular activites.
•Try to make the study as casual as possible so that the user doesn't feel any
pressure.
•Use different techniques like how -what-why to examine the videos or photos or
frames taken from the videos.
57. Empathize -Create journeys maps
•Set clear objectives for the map.
•Profile your personas & define the goals.
•List out all the touchpoints .
•Identify the elements you want map to show
•Take the customer journey yourself.
•Make necessary changes.
59. Ideate-Brainwrite
the participants write down their ideas on paper.
they pass on their own piece of paper to another participant
other participant will elaborate on the first persons ideas & so forth
another few mins the individual participants will again pass their papers on
to someone else & so the process continues.
the process takes 15 min
afterword dicussed.
60. Role in Industry and organizations
“What do I do if a customer won’t answer my question during an
interview?”
“How do we know if our prototype is worth iterating on?”
“How do we know which customers we should talk to first?”
“What tools can help us do design thinking with distributed and remote
teams?”
“How can I continue using these approaches without being ‘found out’
by my boss?”
“How can we convince our colleagues to be open to these new
approaches?”
“How can we sustain this way of thinking into the future?”
“I wish we could use design thinking to make our own experiences as
employees better...wait...can we?”
61. Role in its role in Industry and organizations
1: Design Thinking Creates a Culture of Collaboration:-
Shifting to a mindset that allows for these qualities can be challenging for many employees as it
requires moving away from a mindset of competition to one of collaboration. It also demands a
shift in focus from extracting value from predictable, existing processes to thinking about how to
create new value.
The process of design thinking encourages – even requires – open collaboration.
Three (of many) ways that employing design thinking promotes a culture of collaboration
are:
• Cross-functional teams: Design thinking brings people from varied backgrounds (designers,
engineers, human resources, finance, marketing, etc...) to solve problems. It requires breaking
down silos and gathering a range of perspectives to find often elegant solutions to complex
challenges.
• Environments and tools: Design thinking encourages securing time for teams to work together
in-person, such as when a team is synthesizing qualitative research data or during ideation
sessions. Using a design thinking process also guarantees that you will use inherently
collaborative tools and spaces (whiteboards, Post-Its, etc...).
• An egalitarian mindset: In design thinking, all voices matter regardless of job title, level, or
expertise. It's about leading with data, information, and customer needs rather than hierarchy
and ego. Design thinking requires working with humility so you can be open to having your
assumptions tested.
• By bringing together people with differing knowledge and skill sets, establishing
collaborative environments, and encouraging ideas from everyone, collaboration begins to
flow, first as a process and then as part of an ingrained organizational culture.
62. 2: Design Thinking Cultivates Ideation
The same archaic, hierarchical factory-floor work mentality that prevents collaboration
can also suppress ideation. It can divide up the workday into lists of tasks bound by strict
requirements, leaving no opportunity for employees to contribute their own ideas.
Design thinking supports and promotes ideation by:
• Embracing risk and seeing failure as a positive step—even a requirement—in learning
and developing the right solution. This encourages individuals and teams to go beyond
their comfort zones and not play it safe.
• Cultivating curiosity through abductive reasoning. A logical inference, abductive
reasoning seeks to find the simplest explanation for what the viewer sees. Contrary to
deductive reasoning, it does not guarantee a conclusion. Design thinking requires you
to ask questions from a position of humility and curiosity and to be open to any and all
answers—and therefore ideas.
• When a company embraces a culture of ideation, tackling even the toughest
challenges can be enjoyable. Problems that were once seen as barriers to success
become opportunities for teams to collaborate and be creative. Prioritizing time for
teams to perform real, uninterrupted thinking to solve challenges is rare. Doing so can
give an organization a competitive cultural edge.
63. 3: Design Thinking Encourages (and Requires) Productive Failure
• Outdated workplaces and systems don’t have the policies, behaviors,
and structures in place needed to accommodate failure, let alone
encourage it. They are more focused on efficiencies, established
processes, and driven by a culture of competition, which equates
workplace failure to personal failure
• Failure does not have to be the end of the road. It can be a valuable
learning tool that allows a company to pivot and iterate on its way to
success. Design thinking recognizes failure as a necessary step in the
pursuit of learning and mitigating risk.
• For example, by creating and testing imperfect, lower-cost prototype
versions of multiple concepts with users, a design-led company
reduces the risk associated with bringing something new to the
market. IBM has implemented this tactic of constant prototyping as
part of a system they refer to as “The Loop,” that has come to define
their design-driven philosophy.
64. 4 Steps to Implementing Design Thinking
1. Focus on the problem
• Companies often fail at effectively solving problems or meeting goals
because they don’t correctly identify the user or problem initially. Here are
a few tips for identifying your problem:
• Listen. Put yourself in users’ shoes and think through their lenses.
• Ask questions. Who encounters this problem and why? Why did past
attempts fail to solve the problem at hand?
• Have collaborative conversations. Working in silos is an easy trap to fall
into. Engage with everyone, not just those on your team.
• Stay unbiased. Don’t assume you immediately understand the problem,
nor the solution. By being open-minded you might find something else
you weren’t expecting.
65. 2. Develop design thinking skills on your team
• Traditionally, the ideation phase of the design thinking process was
saved for project managers or engineers, but that doesn’t mean it
can only be used by that department or function.
• Since design thinking is the mindset of asking questions,
understanding, and testing, everyone can and should participate in
this practice. Here are a few tips for developing your team’s design
thinking skills:
• Practice the mindset. Start implementing the process in your role
whenever you can.
• For example, if you oversee onboarding, think about ways you
can test a new approach or understand the new employee
mentality by gathering feedback through a survey. Remain
open to new outcomes.
• Foster interests in design thinking. If you have team members who
want to take initiative and expand their skill sets, make sure to
nurture that interest, whether it is encouraging experimentation or
reimbursing costs for design thinking classes.
66. 3. Have (or start having) more debriefs
• It’s important to understand that design thinking is continuous. It’s a
process of iterating on previous experiments so that the product or outcome
can improve and become better.
• However, learnings can’t be implemented if there’s no feedback process.
Here are a few tips for creating a learning culture through gathering
feedback:
• Be open about what went wrong. Set an example by demonstrating that
failure is an expected part of design thinking. Openly discuss what tests
failed and why.
• View failure as learning. Trying and failing a new approach serves the
crucial function of narrowing down the list of possible processes. This gets
you and your team closer to the approach that will work best. Encourage
failure!
67. 4. Embrace the feedback loop
• The goal of design thinking isn’t perfection, but the best answer possible.
And the best answer likely won’t be the first answer. Thus, a constant
feedback loop is essential. Here are some tips for implementing a feedback
loop:
• Test and iterate as much as possible. Find new ways and angles to test your
assumptions, you might come across something you would’ve never thought
of otherwise.
• Have feedback sessions often. When you embrace feedback, not only does it
create a safe space to innovate but it also prevents the same mistakes from
happening again.
68. Case studies:Healthcare Case Study:
How Design Thinking transformed the Rotterdam Eye Hospital
•Executives at the Rotterdam Eye Hospital wanted to transform the patient experience
from the typically grim, anxiety-riddled affair into something much more pleasant and
personal. To do this, they incorporated Design Thinking and design principles into their
planning process. Here’s how they did it:
70. SOLUTION :
•Empathise
•First, they set out to understand their target user — patients entering the hospital for
treatment. The hospital CEO, CFO, managers, staff and doctors established that most
patients came into hospital with the fear of going blind.
•Define
•Based on their findings from the empathise stage, they determined that fear reduction
needed to be a priority. Their problem statement may have looked something like the
following: “Patients coming into our hospital need to feel comfortable and at ease.”
71. SOLUTION :
•Ideate
•Armed with a deep understanding of their patients and a clear mission statement, they
started to brainstorm potential solutions. As any good design thinker would, they sought
inspiration from a range of both likely and unlikely sources. They looked to flagship
airline KLM and supermarket chain Albert Heijn to learn about scheduling, for example,
while turning to other medical organizations for inspiration on operational excellence.
•Prototype
•In the prototyping stage, the team presented the most promising ideas they had come up
with so far to those in charge of caregiving at the hospital. These teams of caregivers then
used these insights to design informal, small-scale experiments that could test a potential
solution and see if it was worthy of wide-scale adoption.
72. SOLUTION :
•Test
•The testing phase consisted of running the aforementioned experiments and seeing if they
took off. As Dirk Deichmann and Roel van der Heijde explain, the “transition to formal
adoption of these ideas tended to be more gradual. If an idea worked, sooner or later other
groups would ask if they could try it too, and the best ideas spread organically.”
•The outcome
•By adopting a Design Thinking approach, the Rotterdam Eye Hospital were able to get to
the heart of their users’ needs and find effective solutions to fulfil them. In doing so, they
have greatly improved the user experience: patient intake has risen 47%, and the hospital
has since won several awards for safety, quality and design.
