We Are All Designers!
They say necessity is the mother of invention. However in these unprecedented times, when the businesses face complex challenges, a linear problem solving approach is far from viable. While businesses and products were always incrementally innovated, we now need processes and mindsets that helps to disrupt, fit into the new normal and be ‘future ready’.
This is where the ‘open-ended, exploratory, deeply human-centric, imaginative approach’ to problem solving comes into picture called Design thinking.
Design thinking now has become a buzz word across industries, made famous by Tim Brown (Chair at IDEO).
So, what is ‘Design Thinking’?
Audible, an Amazon company is the world’s largest producer and provider of spoken-word entertainment and audiobooks. During the lockdown, it made hundreds of books free for children as the schools were shut down. This business strategy had a human centred element that helped creating a positive brand image in mind of the end users.
‘Design thinking’ is a human centered approach, that helps to bring tangible outcomes at every touch point to deliver meaningful experiences to the end users.
Design thinking has been successfully integrated by fortune 500 companies like Apple, IBM, Nike, Starbucks and many more who have continuously shown, how it is a competitive edge and drives the business growth.
The five-phase model for design thinking was proposed by the Hasso-Plattner Institute of Design Thinking at Stanford, USA
- Empathise – for whom do you want to solve which problems?
- Define – what do you want to solve?
- Ideate – which ideas can solve the problem?
- Prototype – what exactly is the solution?
- Test – what does the user think about your solution?
Design thinking might seem complicated, but it is built on a very simple empathy premise : to understand the needs and challenges by asking simple questions.
The term design in ‘design thinking’ doesn’t mean it is just limited to designers. Any team member from any professional background can start by embracing simple mindset shifts and tackling problems from a new direction.
The mindset that can help you don the designer hat.
- Be obnoxiously curious
- Focus on human values
- Fearless of failure
- Visualize your thinking
- Embrace ambiguity
- Be creatively confident
- Inspire and be inspired
Design thinking is not about design, as much as about thinking. So dive deep and add one more tag to yourself- Designer!
We at Skillsbucket, conduct customised Design Thinking Training Programs. Check out our signature programs for more information. https://www.skillsbucket.in/signature-program/
