The Design Thinking Playbook Read online

  Peter tried to resolve the last crisis in his relationship with a little design thinking session. Priya was very aloof with Peter all of a sudden. Peter took the time to listen to Priya and better understand her needs. Together, they discussed ways to bring more oomph into their relationship. During the brainstorming, Peter had the idea that wearing his lucky red underwear might save the relationship. But in the meantime, he had developed so much empathy for Priya’s concerns that he quickly dismissed the idea. In the end, they came up with a couple of good ideas for their relationship. Priya did wish, though, that Peter would use a different method to learn his needs besides design thinking.

  Up to now, Peter had used design thinking in various situations. He learned that the approach sometimes worked very well for reaching a goal, but that sometimes it wasn’t right. He would like to get a couple of tips from experienced design thinkers to shape his work even more effectively.

  Visualization of the persona

  User profile of an experienced design thinker from actual practice:

  Pains:

  Peter’s employer does not invest much in the further training of employees.

  Although Peter feels quite competent by now in dealing with design thinking, he is still convinced he could get more out of the approach.

  Peter has noted that, while design thinking is a powerful tool, it is not always used optimally.

  Peter frequently wonders how the digital transformation might be accelerated and what design criteria will be needed in the future to be a success on the market.

  Peter would like to combine other methods and tools with design thinking.

  Peter is faced with the challenge of having to impart to his team a new mindset.

  He would like to exchange ideas with other design thinking experts outside his company.

  Gains:

  Peter has a lot of leeway in his daily work to try out new methods and tools.

  He loves books and all tangible things. He likes to use visualizations and simple prototypes for explaining things.

  What he would really like to do is establish design thinking in the whole company.

  He knows various management approaches he would like to link with design thinking.

  Jobs-to-be-done:

  Peter has internalized the design thinking mindset., but sometimes, good examples that would help to change his environment don’t come easily to him.

  Peter enjoys trying out new things. With his engineering background, he is open to other approaches to problem solving (whether quantitative or analytical).

  He would like to become an expert in this environment as well. He is looking to connect with like-minded individuals.

  Peter experiments with design thinking.

  Use cases:

  A book in which experts report on their experience, in which tools are explained by way of examples—such a book would be just the thing in Peter’s eyes. A book he could recommend to his company at all hierarchical levels. A book that expands the framework of inspiration and makes people want to learn more about design thinking.

  He would also like to know which design criteria will be needed in the future, in particular for the development of digital products and services.

  “Who is Lilly?”

  Lilly, 28 years old, is currently working as a design thinking and start-up coach at Singapore University of Technology & Design (SUTD). The institute is one of the pioneers in design thinking and entrepreneurship for technology-oriented companies in the Asian region. Lilly organizes workshops and courses that combine design thinking and lean start-up. She teaches Design Thinking and coaches student teams in their projects. In tandem with that, she is working on her doctoral thesis—in cooperation with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology—in the area of System Design Management on the subject of “Design of Powerful Business Ecosystems in a Digitized World.”

  To divide participants into groups, Lilly uses the HBDI® (Herrmann Brain Dominance Instrument) model in her design thinking courses. Productive groups of four to five are formed this way, each one of which works on one problem statement. She has discovered that it is vitally important in each group to unite all modes of thinking described in the brain model. Lilly’s own preferred style of thinking is clearly located in her right half of the brain. She is experimental, creative, and likes to surround herself with other people.

  Lilly studied Enterprise Management at the Zhejiang University School of Management. For her master’s degree, she spent a year at the École des Ponts ParisTech. As part of the ME310 program and in collaboration with Stanford University, she worked on a project there with THALES as an industrial partner, which is how she became familiar with design thinking. During this project, she visited Stanford three times. She liked the ME310 project so much that she decided to attend the University of Technology & Design in Singapore. There, Lilly became known among faculty for her extravagant flip-flops. SUTD students were less enthusiastic about them.

  More about Lilly: What is her background experience?

  Lilly has great in-depth theoretical knowledge of various methods and approaches and is able to apply them practically with her teams of students. She is good at coaching these teams but lacks understanding of actual practice. Lilly offers design thinking workshops at the Center of Entrepreneurship at Singapore University of Technology & Design. Frequently, people from industrial enterprises who want to learn more in terms of their innovation capability or better understand the topic of “intrapreneurship” take part in these workshops.

  Lilly lives in Singapore and shares an apartment with her friend Jonny, whom she met during her year in France. Jonny is an expat who works for a major French bank in Singapore. At first, Jonny thought Lilly’s flip-flops were somewhat freaky but, at this point, he likes that little splash of color on her.

  To maximize success, Jonny sees great potential in user-centered design and his bank’s pronounced orientation toward customer interaction points. He is enormously interested in new technologies. The thought of what they might mean for banks fascinates and unsettles him at the same time. He follows events in the fintech sector very closely and has identified new potentials that might result from a systematic application of blockchain. He wonders whether such disruptive new technologies will change banks and their business models even more fundamentally than Uber changed the taxi sector or Airbnb the hotel industry—and, if so, when such changes will take place. The core question for Jonny is whether a time will come when banks as we know them will cease to exist altogether. Either way, banks need to become more customer-oriented and make better use of the opportunities that digitization offers than potential newcomers. Jonny is not afraid of losing his job as yet. But still, a start-up together with Lilly might be an exciting alternative. Jonny would like to see his bank apply design thinking and internalize a new mindset, but this is nothing but wishful thinking thus far.

  Lilly and Jonny would also like to set up a consulting firm that applies design thinking to support enterprises with digital transformation. They are still looking for something unique that their start-up could offer in comparison to conventional consultancy firms. In particular, they would like to address cultural needs in their approach to consulting. Lilly has observed too many times how the European and American design thinking mindset failed in an Asian context. She wants to integrate local particularities in her design thinking approach: the attitude of an anthropologist, the acceptance of copying competitors, and the penchant for marketing services more quickly, instead of observing the market for a long time. Something else makes them hesitant to implement their plan: They are bit risk averse because next year, once Lilly has completed her doctoral thesis, they want to get married and raise a family. Lilly wants three children.

  In her free time, Lilly is active and creative. She often meets with like-minded people she knows from the SkillsFuture program, which is a national program that provides Singaporeans the possibility to develop their fullest potential t
hroughout life, regardless of their starting points; or from events such as “Innovation by Design,” which was funded by the DesignSingapore Council. They develop concepts for, among other things, adapting the space and the environment of the country to the needs of people. Lilly is especially intrigued by digital initiatives and hackathons that come into being through real-time data from sensors, social media, and anonymized motion profiles of mobile devices. Singapore is a pioneer that brings the design thinking mindset actively to the entire nation, not least with the “Infusing Design as a National Skill Set for Everyone” campaign.

  Visualization of the persona

  User profile of an experienced design thinker from the academic environment:

  Pains:

  Lilly is uncertain whether she wants to begin a family or a start-up after she has finished her dissertation.

  Lilly would like to work as a professor in the area of design thinking and lean start-up in Southeast Asia, preferably in Singapore, but no such position exists there yet.

  She feels confident in design thinking both in theory and in her work with students, but she has a hard time establishing its importance for actual practice and convincing partners in the industry of its power.

  Working with colleagues from other departments is difficult, although design thinking could be combined well with other approaches.

  Lilly would like to exchange ideas with other design thinkers throughout the world in order to enlarge her network and make contact with industry partners, but has not yet found a platform to do so.

  Gains:

  Lilly enjoys the possibilities offered by the intense contact with students she has as a coach. She can easily try out new ideas, and observing of her students has yielded many findings for her doctoral thesis.

  Lilly loves TED Talks and MOOCs (massive open online classes). She has already attended many courses and talks revolving around the topics of design thinking, creativity, and lean start-up, and has thus acquired a broad knowledge base. She would like to integrate new findings and methods in her courses.

  Lilly wants to bring her knowledge to a community and cultivate contact with other experts, to advance methods, publish, and do research together.

  Through the exchange with those involved in actual practice, Lilly can test and improve new ideas.

  Jobs-to-be-done:

  Lilly understands design thinking in theory and is good at explaining the approach to students. But sometimes, she can’t think of good new examples and success stories from industry that could motivate the students and workshop participants to try out design thinking on their own.

  Lilly coaches students and start-ups, and organizes design thinking and lean start-up workshops. Her aim is to boost user centricity with all participants.

  Lilly enjoys trying out new things. She knows ethnographic methods and human-centered approaches from her studies. What has surprised her time and again is that the stereotypes of individual disciplines have an element of truth in them, yet interdisciplinary teams still achieve more exciting results.

  Lilly wants to meet new people and find ideas for her work and her start-up.

  Use cases:

  The book Lilly wants is one that contains many examples and activities from actual practice instead of pure theory. An easy-to-use reference book with tips from experts that widens her inspiration framework and fires her desire for design thinking. A playbook that looks into the future and shows how design thinking will continue to develop. A book that she can recommend to her students as further reading material.

  “Who is Marc?”

  Marc, 27 years old, completed his MSc in Computer Science two years ago. He used his time at Stanford University to build out his network. He also attended a number of pop-up sessions at the d.school (Stanford University design school) on the theme of entrepreneurship and digital innovation. Marc met like-minded people there who voiced ideas just as crazy as his. Because Marc is somewhat introverted and does not just walk up and speak to people easily, he was grateful for the workshops at the d.school, which were accompanied by a facilitator. The facilitator created an atmosphere in which not only were ideas exchanged but one’s thought preferences were recognized, and teams were optimally put together. His group quickly recognized and appreciated Marc as “the innovator.” The other team members had knowledge of marketing and sales, finance and management control, and health care and mechanical engineering. The group was thrilled by Marc’s idea of stirring up the health care and medtech industry through the use of distributed ledger technology. Marc made quite an impression with words like bitcoin, Zcash, Ethereum, Ripple, Hyperledger Fabric, Corda, and Sawtooth. He waxed enthusiastic about frameworks such as ERIS being miracle weapons to tame the smart-contract dragons. Moreover, Marc had already been involved in two start-ups. For the makers and shakers of two Web analytics firms, he had written code during a summer internship. The group quickly realized that they wanted to found a start-up, knowing very well that Marc’s technological affinity for blockchain, together with their business idea, would not yet make a profitable business. Processes and in particular business ecosystems must be designed to initiate a revolution.

  More about Marc: What is his background experience?

  Marc grew up with mobile communication. As a digital native, he pursues a technology-based lifestyle, as we have already learned. On the level of popular sociology, he is a typical representative of generation Y (why). It is important to him that he do something meaningful with his skills. He wants to work on a team and get recognition. It would be best that no one tell him what to do when it comes to his special field of blockchain.

  Marc grew up in Detroit. His parents were middle class. Both of them had made careers in major automotive companies. Hence Marc witnessed how an entire industry can lose its luster bit by bit. The subprime and financial crisis showed him that, from one day to the next, it can become impossible to pay the mortgage for the big mansion in the Detroit suburbs. Marc learned early on how to deal with uncertainties. He internalized how to “dance” with uncertainty and how to weigh options. For him, design thinking and the associated mindset are a natural attitude. Questioning the things that exist and finding new solutions for problems have always been something obvious to him. He owed the privilege of studying at Stanford to a scholarship. Besides the option of founding a start-up with his team from the d.school, he has received job offers at the campus job fair from Spotify and Facebook involving artificial intelligence. Marc likes both companies because they promise he’d be master over his own time and be able to work autonomously.

  In his leisure time, Marc is a big baseball fan. His favorite team is the Detroit Tigers.

  Coming home from the job fair in question, Marc met Linda, a Brazilian beauty who works as a nurse at the health center of his university. Marc was so taken by reading on his smartphone about the concept of Everledger that he had stepped onto the bicycle lane. Linda was just able to brake in time, but they both got quite a fright from the encounter. Marc was a bit embarrassed, but then he dared ask Linda if she wanted to network with him on Facebook. Marc is very proud of this. Now they swap emoticons via Whatsapp nearly every hour. Marc usually sends little diamonds—not as a digital assets but as virtual tokens of affection to his lovely Linda. But he was also fascinated by the fact that diamonds as digital assets change owners through a private blockchain.

  Visualization of the team

  User profiles of a typical start-up team:

  Pains:

  For Marc, his team doesn’t learn quickly enough. He wants to conduct simple experiments and develop prototypes in the service environment more rapidly.

  Marc pursues a lean approach for his start-up and has noticed how important it is to be honest with oneself and that the biggest risks should be tested first.

  The dynamics of the market and the technology are so great that even things that have already been tested ought to be questioned again and again.

  Marc always sees
new options in the business ecosystem. It is sometimes hard for him to design a complex ecosystem and to shape the business models for the actors in the system.

  Gains:

  Marc is enthusiastic about his subject and his team. He enjoys the energizing atmosphere and meaningful work.

  Marc uses design thinking for innovation exchange and combines it with new elements.

  Marc loves the possibilities of digital business models and knows that the whole world is in upheaval, offering start-ups huge opportunities.

  At this point, Marc has come to love interviews and tests with real users. He has learned to ask the right questions and looks forward to the new findings that are spewed forth at a rapid pace.

  Jobs-to-be-done:

  Marc wants a book that gives leeway to his natural talent for questioning what exists, presents him with new tools, and shows him how they’re applied.