Design thinking in brief
I’m writing this article primarily for practitioners of design thinking who are seeking ways of increasing its value generation potential, so I’ll keep this part brief.
In the 1990s, David Kelley and Tim Brown of the global design and innovation company IDEO, along with strategy exponent Roger Martin, brought together principles, concepts and methods that had been brewing for many years and distilled them into a unified concept they named design thinking.
Design thinking consists of five non-linear, iterative phases (or kinds of work):
Empathize (empathizing)
Define (defining)
Ideate (ideating)
Prototype (prototyping)
Test (testing)
Nielsen Norman Group adds a sixth phase, Implement (implementing).
Others use different labels, or include additional phases, or both.
In 2022, IDEO adopted a six-aspect design thinking process: Frame a question; Gather inspiration; Generate ideas; Make ideas tangible; Test to learn; Share the story. The firm also talks about “the three core activities of design thinking: Inspiration, Ideation and Implementation”.
Design thinking is not a codified method, but rather a particular way of thinking and acting.
Although each consulting firm, corporate team or entrepreneur will practise design thinking in their own way, and using methods of their own choosing, a design thinking project generally displays the following characteristics:Design thinking is both an ideology and a process that seeks to solve complex problems in a user-centric way.
It focuses on achieving practical results and solutions that are:
- Technically feasible: They can be developed into functional products or processes;
- Economically viable: The business can afford to implement them;
- Desirable for the user: They meet a real human need.
Source: What is design thinking, and how do we apply it? on InVisionApp wesite
The needs and concerns of the intended customers or users are kept to the fore.
Work is undertaken by a multidisciplinary team.
Work is iterative.
Experimentation is encouraged. Testing and prototyping begin early.
There are multiple periods of diverge-converge work. Some practitioners refer to each period as a diamond — see for example the Design Council’s Double Diamond framework.
The primary method for producing ideas is brainstorming or one of its derivatives.
The Now-to-New way
This is the essence of the Now-to-New way of thinking, doing and being:
Our common purpose is transcending the mundane, imagining what could be, bringing it into being and enriching the world with value, meaning and joy.
The human being is a mind-body-spirit instrument for creating the new and realising its value generation potential.
At the heart of a world-enriching Now-to-New project is a value generation possibility, expressed as a vision of realised potential.
The potential value is realised by means of a value generator (product, service, facility etc.), which evolves from a high potential idea.
A vision of realised potential and its accompanying high potential idea rise from organic imagination and not from its synthetic counterpart.
A high potential idea is conceived in the imagination of an individual, not in some fanciful group mind.
Not only are upstream conception and downstream value realisation equally important — they are inseparable.
Our common purpose is transcending the mundane, imagining what could be, bringing it into being and enriching the world with value, meaning and joy.
The human being is a mind-body-spirit instrument for creating the new and realising its value generation potential.
The embodied Now-to-New model
Dual torus image sourced from Michael C Grasso and decoloured | View source and read about Grasso’s Menorah Matrix
Read more about the embodied Now-to-New modelAt the heart of a world-enriching Now-to-New project is a value generation possibility, expressed as a vision of realised potential.
A vision of realised potential is a depiction — an actual picture accompanied by a vivid and compelling synopsis — of how the world will look, sound and feel when the person, group or enterprise is fully utilising its value generation capability and manifesting its intent (world-enriching purpose) without constraint.
The potential value is realised by means of a value generator, which evolves from a high potential idea.
A value generator is something tangible or intangible that generates value when the user interacts with it, such as:
A product.
A service.
A facility (this website, for instance).
An event (conference, party, festival).
An establishment (museum, theatre, restaurant).
A piece of infrastructure (bus station, railway line)
An artistic work (book, song, piece of music, painting, theatrical production).
A high potential idea is one that is both potent and fitting.
A vision of realised potential and its accompanying high potential idea arise from organic imagination and not from its synthetic counterpart.
My understanding of the respective roles of the brain’s left and right hemispheres is informed in large part by the work of Dr Iain McGilchrist, author of The Master and His Emissary and The Matter With Things,
Synthetic imagination is deployed later in the project as part of conceptualisation and materialisation work (go back to the embodied model).
Read more about the two forms of imagination
A high potential idea is conceived in the imagination of an individual, not in some fanciful group mind.
A diverge-converge method such as brainstorming or one of its derivatives is not used here.
Generating 1,000 ideas is like making 1,000 keys in the hope that one of them will fit the lock.
The Now-to-New practitioner understands how locks work.
Readiness work immerses the practitioner in the demands and dynamics of the Now-to-New project, enabling him or her to understand the workings of this particular lock and make the one key that fits.
Not only are upstream conception and downstream value realisation equally important — they are inseparable.
Now-to-New practitioners begin with the end in mind and end with the beginning in mind.
I’m certain that design thinking would generate more value, meaning and joy when combined with Now-to-New.
Design thinking is a form of human–centred design.
This human-centredness would be extended if design thinking were combined with Now-to-New.
Not only would greater value, meaning and joy would be experienced by customers or users and other beneficiaries but, as they go about their work, the practitioners would become beneficiaries, experiencing greater value, meaning and joy themselves.
Continue reading
External websites
10 Insightful Design Thinking Frameworks: A Quick Overview, by Rikke Friis Dam and Teo Yu Siang, on Interaction Design Foundation website
Design Thinking 101, by Sarah Gibbons, on Nielsen Norman Group website
Design thinking was supposed to fix the world. Where did it go wrong? by Rebecca Ackermann in MIT Technology Review
This website
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