A great look on designing startups from a designers' perspective based on the new book "Designing A Better Business" by Patrick van der Pluijm & Maarten van Lieshout.

1. New Tools, Skills & Mindsets for Strategy & Innovation
Based on
A BETTER BUSINESS
Emad Saif
Entrepreneurship Educator
www.emadsaif.com
DESIGN

2. CONTENT
1. DESIGN OVERVIEW
2. The DOUBLE LOOP
3. THE DESIGNER SKILLS
4. THE DESIGNER TOOLS
5. THE BOOK

3. DESIGN
OVERVIEW
1

4. DESIGN
DESIGN IS A DISCIPLINED APPROACH
TO SEARCHING, IDENTIFYING, AND
CAPTURING VALUE
“
”

5. BUSINESS DESIGN
Today we can design our business
better and smarter!
We can create the
conditions by which
businesses thrive, grow, and
evolve in the face of
uncertainty and change.

6. DESIGNERS
OBSERVED
THAT …
Every project,
product, company,
change, or idea starts
with a point of view.

7. POINT OF
VIEW
It’s important what you
see and how it changes
with time in a non-linear
fashion

8. POINT OF
VIEW
THE
DOUBLE LOOP
Putting that at the center
of the design process led
to the creation of …

9. THE
DOUBLE LOOP
2

10. THE
DOUBLE
LOOP
The double loop takes your point of view
into account, while adding rigor and
continuity to the design process.
point of view

11. THE
DOUBLE
LOOP
This means your point of view is always
informed by understanding which will spark
new ideas, further enhancing your point of
view.
ideate understand

12. THE
DOUBLE
LOOP
These ideas are prototyped and validated
to test and measure their effectiveness.
validate prototype

13. THE
DOUBLE
LOOP
This in turn further informs your point of view
and enables you to execute your ideas
successfully.

14. PREPARE
POINT OF
VIEW
UNDERSTANDIDEATE
PROTOTYPEVALIDATE
SCALE
THE
DOUBLE
LOOP
has 7 elements

15. THE
DOUBLE LOOP
PREPARE
Design is a team sport
that requires preparation
to be done well
PREPARE

16. THE
DOUBLE LOOP
Design is human. The
journey you take will help
to inform your point of
view going forward
POINT OF
VIEW
POINT
OF VIEW

17. THE
DOUBLE LOOP
The design journey starts
with the customer,
context and your
business. Understanding
these is the key to design
something better
UNDERSTAND
UNDERSTAND

18. THE
DOUBLE LOOP
There is no single right
solution. Ideation will
enable you and your
team to unlock and build
upon each others’ ideas
IDEATE
IDEATE

19. THE
DOUBLE LOOP
At some point your ideas
must see the light of day.
Prototyping is about
bringing your ideas to life
so that you can learn
from them
PROTOTYPE
PROTOTYPE

20. THE
DOUBLE LOOP
Ideas are just thoughts
based on assumptions. To
understand where true
values lies, you must test
your ideas and measure
the results
VALIDATE
VALIDATE

21. THE
DOUBLE LOOP
Design journeys are
iterative, cyclical, and
designed to scale from
small projects to
organization-wide culture
norms
SCALE
SCALE

22. THE
DESIGNER SKILLS
3

23. THE DESIGNER SKILLS
There are 8 key important
skills every great designer
needs to design a smarter
business.

24. THE SKILLS
• Facilitation
• Managing Energy
• Dare to Step Up
• Observation
• Questioning
• Ideation
• Prototyping
• Validation
LEARN TO MANAGE ENERGY - To maximize output,
the team must feel energized. “Energy,” in this
case, describes how willing and able people are
to contribute.
MORE THAN A MEETING – About facilitating not just
a discussion or a meeting; it’s about facilitating the
whole process.
WEAR THE RIGHT HAT AT THE RIGHT TIME - There are
times to be utterly optimistic and there are times to
be critical.
VISUAL FACILITATION - Capturing the arguments on
a big flip chart, big enough for all the participants
to read is very effective and sticks better.

25. THE SKILLS
• Facilitation
• Managing Energy
• Dare to Step Up
• Observation
• Questioning
• Ideation
• Prototyping
• Validation
TIME MANAGEMENT - The best trick for time
management is to put the participants in charge of
keeping time to become efficient.
PUSH Actions - Moving into the group, putting
words into people’s mouths, making the group
jump through formal hoops and structures, and
arguing.
PULL Actions - Taking a step back, not immediately
having an answer, being silent, and asking honest,
open questions.
HOLDING THE MARKER – Means you have the
power to frame the discussion and to move on.

26. THE SKILLS
• Facilitation
• Managing Energy
• Dare to Step Up
• Observation
• Questioning
• Ideation
• Prototyping
• Validation
STICK TO YOUR BELIEFS - If you don’t how can you
ever trust others to do so?
DARE TO BE YOURSELF – Show up at your job the
same as you would show up in your private life.
GO BEYOND YOURSELF EVERYDAY – Oonly then do
we commit ourselves to growth.

27. THE SKILLS
• Facilitation
• Managing Energy
• Dare to Step Up
• Observation
• Questioning
• Ideation
• Prototyping
• Validation
BE A FLY ON THE WALL - A good way to think
about observation is to act like a fly on the wall,
observing people in their natural habitat, finding
the key moments in their lives.
DON’T GO EMPTY-HANDED - Before you venture
out to observe your customers, you’ll need to do a
bit of planning. First off , define the subject of your
observation before you go.
LEAVE YOUR POINT OF VIEW – Don’t judge when
you start exploring and observing. Leave your point
of view and assumptions at the door and accept
different perspectives.

28. THE SKILLS
• Facilitation
• Managing Energy
• Dare to Step Up
• Observation
• Questioning
• Ideation
• Prototyping
• Validation
QUESTION WHAT YOU SEE - Observing your
customers in their natural habitats will tell you a lot
about what they do, what they care about, and
what decisions they make.
ASKING THE RIGHT QUESTIONS - It’s not about the
answers you get, but about asking the right
questions. The right questions will always lead to
interesting and telling conversations.

29. THE SKILLS
• Facilitation
• Managing Energy
• Dare to Step Up
• Observation
• Questioning
• Ideation
• Prototyping
• Validation
START YOUR (CREATIVE) ENGINES - Generating lots
of ideas with a team is easy if you know how to do
it. It all comes down to facilitation.
BUILD STEPPING-STONES - The more ideas you and
your team put out there, the more chances you’ll
have to make interesting connections and build
ideas on top of other ideas.
CREATE A RITUAL - It takes a bit of time even for an
experienced creative to shift mental gears and
get the creative juices flowing.
USE A TOOL – There are lots of ideation tools that
can help you and your team create many
valuable ideas together.

30. THE SKILLS
• Facilitation
• Managing Energy
• Dare to Step Up
• Observation
• Questioning
• Ideation
• Prototyping
• Validation
SKETCH IT FIRST - Sketching is a great way to feel
your way around a prototype, approaching it
quickly from different angles.
KEEP IT SIMPLE - What if you had no budget and
no time? What can you accomplish in 30 minutes
or less? Funny enough, adding constraints to
yourself will increase your ability to be creative.
YOUR MATERIALS ARE AROUND YOU - In early
prototyping, you don’t need fancy materials if you
know what you want to test. Tinkering withoffice
supplies, paper, and everything else at hand is
usually all you need.

31. THE SKILLS
• Facilitation
• Managing Energy
• Dare to Step Up
• Observation
• Questioning
• Ideation
• Prototyping
• Validation
FAIL EARLY, FAIL OFTEN - Your first idea will very
likely not survive contact with a customer. You’ll
need to learn and adapt, fast!
PIVOT - When an experiment tells you that a
fundamental assumption behind your idea is
flawed, change the direction and pivot.
PERSEVERE – When an experiment tells you that
you are right about your assumption then move
forward and tackle the next assumption.
DO IT AGAIN – As a designer, validation of ideas
never stops and you’ll keep learning new things
about your customers that will tell you how to
approach them even better.

32. THE
DESIGNER TOOLS
4

33. THE DESIGNER TOOLS
There are 20 useful tools to
help designers design a
better business.20

34. The TOOLS

35. THE
BOOK
5

36. www.designabetterbusiness.com

37. Thank You
emadsaif.comEmad Saif Educator & Entrepreneur @esaif