Schools of Innovation Design Thinking Distinctions Between Design

Schools of Innovation

Design Thinking • Distinctions Between Design and Design Thinking • Steve Jobs famously said, “Most people make the mistake of thinking design is what it looks like. People think it’s this veneer – that the designers are handed this box and told, ‘Make it look good!’ That’s not what we think design is. It’s not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works. ” 5 • Tim Brown, CEO of IDEO, the design company that popularised the term design thinking, says “Design thinking can be described as a discipline that uses the designer’s sensibility and methods to match people’s needs with what is technologically feasible and what a viable business strategy can convert into customer value and market opportunity. ”

• Thinking like a designer brings together what is desirable from a human point of view with what is technologically feasible and economically viable. • A design mindset is not problem-focused, it’s solution -focused and action-oriented. It involves both analysis and imagination. • Design thinking draws on logic, imagination, intuition and systemic reasoning to explore the possibilities of what could be and to create desired outcomes that benefit the end user (the customer).

Design thinking at Apple

Systems thinking • The essence of systems thinking is to focus on the whole. • The parts are no longer the primary focus. The parts are essential, but what is more important is the interrelationship between the parts as they work together to fulfill the purpose of the whole system. • Systems thinking is a purpose/outcome-oriented approach of thinking that is very different from the piecemeal and fragmented approach we often use. • Even though our universe is “held together” by systems, ironically, we continually break things apart, to look at the pieces and lose whatever sight we had of the whole. That process, known as analytical thinking, makes the parts primary and the whole secondary. • In systems thinking, the whole is primary and the parts, secondary. This is not only a holistic and strategic way of viewing an organization, it can transform the way people interact. •

Lateral thinking • “Lateral thinking is a phrase coined by Dr. Edward de Bono as a counterpoint to conventional or vertical thinking. In contentional thinking, we go forward in a predictable, direct fashion. Lateral thinking involves coming at the problem from new directions – literally, from the side. ” • life has its dogmas – the dominant ideas that everyone simply accepts without questionining them. They are assumptions, rules and conventions that influence people’s thinking and attitudes. Once they’re in place, people naturally support them, because they seem to make sense, and they tend to vociferously defend those beliefs, no matter what. • Lateral thinking, is an excellent tool for viewing those dominant ideas in a fresh light. The strategy is to write them down, and then deliberately challenge them. Turn every dominant idea and association on its head, and simply see where it leads.

• Asking “What if? ” is an excellent technique that can help you to stretch your lateral thinking muscles, because it forces you to explore possibilities and challenge assumptions – both at the same time. • Come up with questions that are extreme to the point of being ridiculous, because they help to whack us out of our well-rutted paths of thinking.