The document discusses the future of design thinking. It explores whether design thinking is dead or what future it has. It examines the consequences of design thinking spreading to other areas like social innovation. It also looks at the promises and challenges of design thinking. Key points discussed include Tim Brown's hopes for using design thinking to solve social problems, the opportunities for design thinking to be relevant across disciplines, and the limitations and fears around design thinking becoming too generalized or dependent on certain leaders. The document considers different perspectives on the meaning and future of design thinking.

1. The future of design
thinking?
Lecture 11 DDD30006 Design thinking
Dr Gavin Melles, Swinburne University
Lecture 11
1

2. Lecture 11
2
Overview
 Is design thinking dead?
 What future does it have?
 Consequences of the
spread to other areas, e.g.
social innovation
 So what next? Where to
from here?
 Promises and challenges

3. Lecture 11
3
Tim Brown’s Hopes
 JUNE 23, 2013, 7:40
PM|IDEO's Tim Brown tells
Charlie Rose that his
company is increasingly
asked to design solutions to
social problems - like how to
build a better education
system in Peru or help NFL
players transition to life after
football
 http://www.cbsnews.com/vid
eos/ideo-ceo-tim-brown-on-
the-future-of-design-thinking/
 What has been achieved?
 What still needs to happen?
 What are the challenges
and opportunities?

4. The Big Promise
 Although design thinking was at first only explored and developed in
connection with professional designers, strategies have been identified that
are relevant to all disciplines and professions. As designers frequently have
to handle gateways among different fields (e.g., they take an interest in the
needs of people/users like social scientists but have to consider technical
issues such as those for engineers), they have obviously developed certain
policies to successfully merge differing professional out- looks. In the same
vein, designers are capable of handling wicked problems. The strategies
they apply may be transferred to many fields beyond design proper to help
tackle wicked problems there. Thus, design thinking turns out to deliver a
valuable methodology for interdisciplinary creative work as it specifically
complements mono-disciplinary thinking.
 Lindberg, T., Noweski, C., & Meinel, C. (2010). Evolving discourses on
design thinking: how design cognition inspires meta-disciplinary creative
collaboration. Technoetic Arts: A Journal of Speculative Research, 8(1), 31–
37. doi:10.1386/tear.8.1.31/1
Lecture 11
4

5. Kimbell, L. (2011). Rethinking Design
Thinking: Part I. Design and Culture, 3(3),
285–306.
 In this study three things come into view. Firstly that accounts
 of design thinking often rest on a dualism that makes a
distinction between “thinking” and “doing” and between
designers and the worlds they do design in, rather than
acknowledging the situated, embodied work of design thinking
in practice. Secondly, attending to the diversity of designers’
practices and the institutions in which they work makes it
questionable to generalize about a unified design thinking
exhibited across all of them. Thirdly, descriptions of design
thinking rest on sometimes contradictory views about the nature
of design and, for all the claims about being “user-centered,” still
emphasize the designer as the main agent within design.
Lecture 11
5

6. The Future of Design Thinking in
Australia: Barriers and
Opportunities
Design thinking is a conversation
that should be brought to business leaders of
Australian companies both large and small.
While we have managed to move through the
global financial crisis relatively unscathed, our
businesses face ongoing challenges now and
into the future. The risk of turbulent markets
in Australia is real—and one way design
thinking might gain traction would be by using
it in the context of risk management. However,
the understanding and perception of design
and design thinking needs to evolve if this
improvement is to be realized. It’s time to share,
exchange ideas, and find a common language
around building a creative approach to solving
both old and new business problems
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/enhanced/doi/10.1111/dr
ev.10237/
Lecture 11
6

7. Too many meanings?
 We do not believe that there is a unique meaning of ‘design
thinking’, and accordingly we should not look for one. Instead,
we look for where and how the concept is used in different
situations, both theoretical and practical, and what meaning is
given to the concept. In this article we have identified multiple
discourses with distinctly different meanings and assumptions
given to the concept ‘design thinking’: five scholarly discourses
grounded within the design research area, and three dis-
courses within the managerial area, of which two are grounded
in management research and one in design practice.
 Johansson-Sköldberg, U., Woodilla, J., & Çetinkaya, M. (2013).
Design Thinking: Past, Present and Possible Futures. Creativity
and Innovation Management, 22(2), 121–146.
doi:10.1111/caim.12023
Lecture 11
7

8. Fears ahead
 The key ingredient for business success is the presence of
both an innovative CEO who sees design as an investment,
not a cost, and a strategic design director or consultant who
can place the value of the design at the center of the
company. If either one leaves, the value of design is
jeopardized. The rise and fall of the role of design in
corporate America is directly related to a change in this
relationship more than any other factor in the economy
 Vogel, C. M. (2009). Notes on the Evolution of Design
Thinking: A Work in Progress. Design Management Review,
20(2), 16–27. doi:10.1111/j.1948-7169.2009.00004.x
Lecture 11
8

9. Limitations of Design Thinking
 http://vimeo.com/42136543
 Paul Pangaro
 Strengths
 Limitations
 Future Developments
 Excessive claims
Lecture 11
9

10. Conclusions?
 Where to next for design thinking?
 What will the stage look like in 5 or 10 years
 What will remain and what will disappear?
 What are the bigger issues (and concepts)?
 How would you write a balanced appraisal?
Lecture 11
10