Defining Concept of Design Thinking - Assignment Example

Defining Concept of Design Thinking Defining Concept of Design Thinking Introduction Design thinking refers to the human-centered approach to innovation, which draws from a designer’s toolkit in order to incorporate the people’s needs, the possibilities of technology, as well as the requirements for any business to succeed (Hunter 2015, p. 1). In its simplest for, design thinking is a process that helps to create a fresh and innovative idea of solving problems. Reasoning like a designer can significantly change the way business develop their products, processes, services and strategy. This method brings together what is needed from a humankind viewpoint with what is technologically feasible plus financial viable (Polsani 2010, p. 1). It permits people who are not trained as designers as well to utilise creative tools in order to cope with the fast range of growing challenges. Design thinking is basically a human process, which taps into people’s skills, but it is normally ignored by more traditional problem-solving method (Hunter 2015, p. 1). Design thinking depends on people’s ability to be intuitive, identify patterns, develop ideas, which are meaningful and functional, and communicate well through methods past symbols and words. No one wants to run a company of intuition, feelings and inspiration, but an over-dependence on the analytical and rational can be just as dangerous (Polsani 2010, p. 1). This is where design thinking comes in – to offer an integrated third way (Hunter 2015, p. 1). Keeping in line with that, this paper will complete a thoroughly researched essay that defines the concept of design thinking. It will explain how each and every example is linked in some way and also discuss examples of design thinking in a real business world. How These Examples are Linked Today’s organisations go through multifaceted problems and issues, which are basically part of more and more complex business models. Constant expansions of worldwide transactions, supported through partnerships, which can span huegeecosystems, create both unique challenges and unique opportunities for businesses and organisations (Polsani 2010, p. 1). The process of design thinking is best considered as a system of overlapping spaces instead of a chain of orderly steps. There are three key spaces to bear in kind including ideation, inspiration and implementation (Hunter 2015, p. 1). Inspiration is the opportunity or problem, which motivates people to look for answers or solutions. Ideation, on the other hand, refers to the process of collecting, developing and analysing ideas. And, finally, implementation is the route that leads from the project level into human lives. Under this system, businesses utilises both generative methods and analytical tools in order to assist client perceive how their existing or new operations can look in the near future, and develop methods of getting there. Design thinking comprises of business model prototyping, innovation strategy, data visualisation, organisational design, IP liberation and quantitative and qualitative research (Hunter 2015, p. 1). All of an organisation’s works that uses design thinking is carried out in consideration of the capabilities of their clients, as well as their needs (Polsani 2010, p. 1). As they iterate towards a lasting solution, most of them asses and reassess their design. Their objective is to deliver suitable, actionable and reliable methods and the impact is a new and innovative avenue for development, which is grounded in the business viability in addition to market desirability (Hunter 2015, p. 1). My own definition of design thinking is that it is something that bridges the gap between analytical thinking and intuitive thinking because it takes an invention of the future from intuitive thinking and the readiness to utilise abductive logic. Design Thinking Application in a Business World Design Thinking Impact on Business Strategy in a Global Context On a global scale, business challenges require multidimensional solution and going past the normal uses of contemporary services and products. Thus, through putting into practice the design thinking framework, businesses can not only tackle their day to day issues and challenges but achieve competitive advantage, as well (Polsani 2010, p. 1). Driving innovation at big, global businesses is extremely difficult. As businesses grow and become successful, the processes and culture harden and resisting changes turns into the norm (Hunter 2015, p. 1). Consequently, businesses fail to reframe key issues, recognise unmet needs and fight the status quo. Today, design thinking is applied with fervor, which has greatly aided in transforming finance, HR, operations and marketing teams, turning organisations into lean and agile profit centers. Many multinational corporations such as Google, Inc, Apple, Inc, IBM, P&G, Wall Mart, and BMW among others are deemed to be using (Polsani 2010, p. 1). Such organisations are thought to consider clients are their driving force of their current and prospective dealings. Their products, whether they deliver to internal or external clients, create an intrinsic value to them and fulfill their specific business needs. This cannot be fulfilled unless the clients are made an integral part of the whole product life cycle, not just an afterthought (Hunter 2015, p. 1). It is acknowledged that projects, teams or businesses that do not seriously take into consideration customer focus are basically bound to fail. Multinational organisations center their attention even more on the client, making the them their main point of focus of design when it comes to looking for any solution, and they time after time utilise the values embraced by this approach, such as diversity, empathy, as well as ambiguity, and identifying the significance of multidisciplinary organisations (IDEO n.d, p. 1). A lot of these principles echo notions that arise from famous principles and prominent practices, but what design thinking does for this multinationals, essentially, is integrate them into a repeatable and coherent process (Diethelm 2012, p. 6). Design thinking in our normal business world can only be applied in three ways in order to bring about innovation. These three ways include: viability, feasibility, and desirability. Example 1: Viability Viability refers to the ability of anything to sustain itself and/or recover its potentialities. The viability of a business is gauged by its long-standing survival, as well as its capacity to attract sustainable profits over a long period of time (Sarrazin & Yeon 2015, p. 1). Thus, if an organisation is viable, then it is able to survive for many decades, since it keeps on making profits year after year. The longer an organisation can stay gainful, the greater its viability. For instance, Apple, Inc shows its viability year by year through making a profit each and every year of its existence. Providing a top notch customer experience is good for any organisation (Hunter 2015, p. 1). Whereas this is true to a certain level, business needs are normally at odds with offering the best client experience; this is according to Catherine Courage, a senior vice president of customer experience at Citrix Systems. The firm develops different cloud-computing, as well as enterprise-software solutions. Catherine believes that when this happens (business needs being at the odds), taking a much closer look through the lenses of viability can aid an organisational team make informed decisions (Sarrazin & Yeon 2015, p. 1). One experience Citrix Systems has had in making the most out of the business needs that are at the odd ends of another was when one of their clients required to entirely replace a section of custom software, which is core to their business model (Hunter 2015, p. 1). This software came with a web-based backend, which lets its staff add, amend, and follow records in their system, as well as a native iOS iPad app, which the customer’s contractors utilise in the field (Sarrazin & Yeon 2015, p. 1). This project is a considerable investment for Citrix Systems, representing a huge portion of their annual budget, plus the feature set has to endorse the demands of many groups across their company (Hunter 2015, p. 1). As Citrix Systems started developing the software, their team identified that both the release timetable and the budget were going to be overly tight, and to convey the value their client require, they had to economise wherever they could (Sarrazin & Yeon 2015, p. 1). One significant choice Citrix Systems made, in collaboration with their client, was that they would focus their UX endeavours on their iPad application and avoid spending too much time on the administrative interface. Citrix Systems made their decision through regarding the needs of the people who would be using the app: it was significant to have a polished, properly-tested face for the contractors who were utilising the iPad app in the field, as well as for the individuals working with the contractors (Sarrazin & Yeon 2015, p. 1). The contractors utilised the iPad to finalise a multifaceted process as quickly and precisely as possible in a random environment, plus the people in the field needed to see a smooth and polished process, which granted them a feeling of trust and confidence in their client, as well as their representatives (Sarrazin & Yeon 2015, p. 1). Thus, Citrix Systems put in a lot of effort into planning a visually attractive user interface, developing usable workflows and controls, and doing usability analysis on the iPad app (Sarrazin & Yeon 2015, p. 1). Exercise 2: Feasibility Feasibility refers to the degree or state of being conveniently or easily done. It is the ability to successfully complete a project and making and informed decision, taking into account economic, legal, scheduling and technological factors among other things (Dorsta 2011, p. 524). Instead of just plunging into a project and anticipating for the best, feasibility permits project managers to look into the likely positive and negative outcomes of a project prior to investing too much money and time on it (Fast Company Staff n.d, p. 1). For instance, in the business world, when it comes to design thinking, if any private institution , let us say a school, wanted to grow its campus to lessen overcrowding, then it could conduct a feasibility test to decided whether or not to implement the findings (Hunter 2015, p. 1). This study may take a look at where additions should be built, how the expansion would interrupt the school year, how much the expansion would cost, how learners feel concerning the proposed expansion, how their parents feel concerning the proposed expansion, what local restrictions might influence the expansion, and so on (Cohen 2014, p. 1). Organisations that utilise design thinking normally ask themselves whether they have the capability needed to produce any idea. They ask themselves whether they can develop and commercialise their innovation (Hunter 2015, p. 1). Feasibility to them implies that they have the internal capability to change the idea or thought into a real world solution. However, recent literature on design thinking center more on the creative solution generation part of design thinking and fail to consider how to recognise the most feasible solutions that grant natural constraints (Dorsta 2011, p. 524). Political and economic constraints affect the feasibility of a resolution to a social problem. Design thinkers dealing with social problems have shunned away from describing feasibility. They have also shunned away from explicitly including the economic and political constraints in their literature. One likely explanation is that recent design thinking answers in order to social problems are executed in the context of social free enterprise (Green 2015, p. 1). In addition, the identified answers continue to be analysed for business and technology feasibility (Hunter 2015, p. 1). As other disciplines such as public service adopt design thinking, it is significant for researchers and practitioners to rethink feasibility for design thinking solutions (Hunter 2015, p. 1). Exercise 3: Desirability Desirability, on the other hand, is about comprehending users needs plus granting expression to latent and unarticulated desires of client (Brown 2008, p. 1). In a real business world, this is attained through ethnographic methods of looking into people’s actual live situations, as well as dialoguing with client, who are at the extreme ends of your business (Hunter 2015, p. 1). Clients actually reveal more through their action in a context compared to how they would in a survey plus a normal users offer exceptional points of view, which are not captured while studying a focus group of normal consumers (Dorsta 2011, p. 524). As I finalise the paper, design thinking is a non-linear, explorative and iterative activity, which circles through three spaces: imagining, understanding and embodying. Thus, teams that are not sensitive to the tensions between viability, feasibility, and desirability can be destined for doom when it comes to delivering a sub-par product (Hunter 2015, p. 1). Nevertheless, through communicating openly and freely looking at the project by the three different lenses, teams can change constraints into benefits and create an innovative solution. Case Studies Tim Brown in Harvard Business Review Roger Martin on Innovation Catalyst Program at Intuit School work on the Embrace case School video on defining a point of view References Brown, T 2008, Design thinking, viewed 7th May, 2015 at https://hbr.org/2008/06/design-thinking Cohen, R 2014, Design thinking: a unified framework for innovation, viewed 7th May, 2015 at http://www.forbes.com/sites/reuvencohen/2014/03/31/design-thinking-a-unified-framework-for-innovation/ Diethelm, J 2012, An essay on meaning in design thinking, viewed 7th May, 2015 at http://www.academia.edu/1769428/An_Essay_on_Meaning_in_Design_Thinking Dorsta, K 2011, "The core of ‘design thinking’ and its application," Design Studies vol. 32, no. 6, pp. 521–532. Fast Company Staff n.d, Design thinking... what is that? viewed 7th May, 2015 at http://www.fastcompany.com/919258/design-thinking-what Green, S 2015, Applying design thinking to your business, viewed 7th May, 2015 at https://hbr.org/2009/11/applying-design-thinking-to-yo/ Hunter, B 2015, Human-centered software: creating more value by balancing feasibility, viability, & desirability, viewed 7th May, 2015 at http://spin.atomicobject.com/2015/01/06/human-centered-software-creating-value-balancing-feasibility-viability-desirability/ IDEO n.d, About IDEO, viewed 7th May, 2015 at http://www.ideo.com/about/ Polsani, P R 2010, Design thinking: the innovation engine, viewed 7th May, 2015 at http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/opinion/design-thinking-the-innovation-engine/articleshow/5665575.cms Sarrazin, H & Yeon, H 2015, Applying design thinking across the business: an interview with Citrix’s Catherine Courage, viewed 7th May, 2015 at http://www.mckinsey.com/insights/business_technology/an_interview_with_citrixs_catherine_courage Read More