Design Thinking - Influences and Critiques on Construction Business - Assignment Example

Design Thinking Design thinking is basically about the way designers think and the tools as well as techniques they utilize within their work. In the last decade, design thinking has turn out to be a popular issue within design and particularly within business circles. Companies have acclimatized design thinking as an important element of their “business’s innovation process” (Brown, 2008, p. 84), which has given a whole new direction this term. The visibility of design in media has enhanced the responsiveness of what design profession can incorporate and the way design can boost the value that companies offer to their clientele via products and services. Within the business and management discussion, there are some familiar important individuals that have been practically talking about design thinking in the design-, business- as well as management-related media. For instance, Roger Martin thinks design thinking is a blend of investigative as well as abductive concept that can assist in developing business improvement. Moreover, this is also the common idea within the business and management discussion. Design thinking is usually taken as a technique or an approach to form business significance, innovative plans and modernization, whether it is within business, services or policy. The setback is in the fact that design thinking on its own is not capable of achieving this. It can get originality to business but will not resolve business problems or create innovation on its own. “Business modelling, strategy and other fields of domains are essential for creating innovation” (Martin, 2009, p. 92). Design thinking as well as design can facilitate in accomplishing it. Martin, Bruce Nussbaum and Helen Walters have been quite noticeable individuals in the business and management field by showing their support to the idea of design thinking by providing a number of opinionated critiques. There has been a debate among the two discourses as well as among the other public figures. The debate revolves around the fact of whether design and particularly design thinking can be learnt and practiced by everyone. The main concentration in the design thinking revolution is that businesses get used to design thinking - design techniques, means and the way of working - as a key element of their innovation practice. Even though the design field has not completely modified design thinking in the framework within which the business community recognizes it, the fact that the organizations have adjusted to design thinking has improved the responsiveness of design as well as its potential for creating facilities, modernization, strategies and for common problem solving (Dunne & Martin, 2006, p. 515). Designers as well as design companies are now approached to solve problems in each and every field. The design discipline has modified astonishingly, somewhat due to the major design thinking trend; it has been provided with an immense level of media exposure and therefore it has been noticeable by a huge audience. There is an understanding of the main aspects of design thinking - multidisciplinary collaboration, swift prototyping as well as user focused design - are utilized as means for resolving issues in every domain. Businesses started to include the phrase design thinking within their service offers as well as promotional materials, although there was no general opinion on what design thinking actually is. The example of design thinking can be noticed at HP, when the company has taken the decision of designing the packaging with the product, rather than after product design is confirmed. The basis of this decision is to “make the products stronger and the packaging smaller” (Gharajedaghi, 2011, p. 76). Earlier, HP packaging was designed to keep the product secure during transportation. Currently, the packaging is done next to the product, and hence, they support one another, making it more convenient for transportation. This is a good example of design thinking as it unites business thinking (making procedures more well-organized as well as making everything cost-effective) with creative thinking (design process). At this case of HP, the design thinking is in the process. The company modified the process to have the Research and Development department operate in a different way to let the packaging department operate in an improved manner. This strategy of HP can be compared to Apple. Apple also adopted a related approach with the iPad - during the production of iPad, the cover to secure the screen was made during the product development stage. This is also an ideal example of design thinking as two products were produced to complement one another (Kimbell, 2011, p. 299). Another example of design thinking is ‘Keep the Change’ service introduced by Bank of America. With this service, each time a customer pays via his or her credit card, the bank will automatically adjust the total sum of cash into an integral amount (for example, 47.50 USD will be changed to 50 USD), the bank after that returns the change - 2.50 USD - to the customer’s saving account. Customers are amazed that they save some cash without making any deliberate attempt and feel pleased. Generally, paying by credit cards indicates that one has to spend money and customers mostly have negative thoughts while paying the bill of their credit card on monthly basis (Beckman & Barry, 2007, p. 25); however, this service makes a successful attempt to modify their negative reaction to a positive sentiment by adopting this approach. The majority of banks utilize a conventional method to draw clientele - by means of pleasant ads or offering discounts and / or lower interest rates. This innovative idea on the other hand stays nearer to customer’s requirements, and simultaneously the bank still makes money when individuals are making payments via credit card. H&M is well-known for its low-priced, fashionable attire in addition to its global expansion. Form its launch, H&M has started a large number of designer’s collections prepared by “Karl Lagerfeld, Sienna Miller and Versace” (Brown & Wyatt, 2010, p. 33). The attires in this sort of a collection are still reasonably priced; however, they are more costly as compared to the regular collection and the series are also smaller comparatively, “establishing a sense of urgency (Brown & Wyatt, 2010, p. 35). The garments are likely to be more delicate to some extent in comparison to the regular collection, which can create a centre of attraction for a new target group and support the link with the existing H&M clientele. In addition, the designer collections draw a lot of interest within the media, which provides H&M with an additional competitive lead. The group effort with well-known fashion designers is somewhat a new concept not only for the brand, but also for the low-priced clothing business. ‘Haute couture’ was never accessible by the usual public and now - even though it is not in fact haute couture - customers can acquire ‘designer clothes’ for the nearby H&M shop. H&M unquestionably has taken some really bold steps and network to approach as well as persuade renowned designers to design for them, which shows the talent it has to launch the unique collection and put it up for sale it next to their regular collections. Networking as well as selling is two abilities that are often overlooked by the companies or they deliberately do not pay much attention to these factors. Another good example of design thinking is an online music streaming website, Spotify. The music business is in front of a huge dilemma of illegal downloading; a great deal of revenue is lost due to the same. Internet, being the key source of illegal downloading, is considered as a danger for the music business by the big record labels. Spotify recognized the internet as a key prospect to extend music. Rather than coming up with “anti-copy protection” (Meinel & Leifer, 2010, p. 23) it utilizes the internet to increase the reach of the music by providing a free online music service and draws a huge amount of users. It earns capital by selling radio advertisements, which are “played at the free accounts” (Meinel & Leifer, 2010, p. 24). Users are not required to download the music; they can simple stream the music online. Hence, Spotify modified the internet from a huge risk into a massive opportunity for the music sector which shows effective application of design thinking. The Senz umbrella is another example of the design thinking process. Senz is the producer of storm resistant umbrellas. The business solved a current issue of breaking down of umbrellas during windy season by joining technology, security, functionality, practicality and aesthetics. The idea itself in not hard to come up with; however, it needed the understanding of “aerodynamics” as well as “fabrics” (Badke-Schaub et al, 2010, p. 43), which are not regular set of expertise for industrial design learners. The idea of a storm resistant umbrella includes illogicality: regular umbrellas are inexpensive, and stop working easily. Consequently, they have small value as well as are easily substituted. The Senz umbrella is a lot more costly but very resilient as well. Senz has modified the whole business model in addition to the value perception of its products. In addition, because the shape of the umbrella is considerably different from the standard umbrellas, it has turn out to be a sort of “status symbol” (Davis, 2010, p. 6535), as it proves that one values technology and is ready to buy it. Design thinking turned into a rapidly evolving trend within the business and management field during the last ten to fifteen years. The understanding of the phrase started during the early phase of 2008 and then the term ‘design thinking’ swiftly became extremely popular in business- and management-related publications. By the year 2010, design thinking elated courses as well as degree programs had gained huge level of awareness, and design thinking turned into a part of many educational programs. However, at the same time, the publicity around the design thinking trend has been going down as a number of individuals started to critique the utilization of the term design thinking. A number of major followers of design thinking altered their opinion on the worth of design thinking. The term was considered to be “fussy” (Dunne & Martin, 2006, p. 520) as well as very theoretical and a few argued that design thinking was a utilized for marketing reasons for renowned design consultancies. However, the debates still continue in both design as well as business field, although the expression has somewhat modified. Design thinking carries on to be a widely accepted theme in debates although in a declining way for its “loose meaning” (Dunne & Martin, 2006, p. 520). References Badke-Schaub, P., Roozenburg, N., & Cardoso, C. 2010. Design thinking: a paradigm on its way from dilution to meaninglessness. Design Thinking Research (pp. 39-49). Beckman, S. L., & Barry, M. 2007. Innovation as a learning process: Embedding design thinking. California Management Review, 50(1), 25. Brown, T. 2008. Design thinking. Harvard business review, 86(6), 84. Brown, T., & Wyatt, J. 2010. Design thinking for social innovation. Development Outreach, 12(1), 29-43. Davis, B. M. 2010. Creativity & Innovation in Business 2010 Teaching the Application of Design Thinking to Business. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 2(4), 6532-6538. Dunne, D., & Martin, R. 2006. Design thinking and how it will change management education: An interview and discussion. Academy of Management Learning & Education, 5(4), 512-523. Gharajedaghi, J. 2011. Systems thinking: Managing chaos and complexity: A platform for designing business architecture. Elsevier. Kimbell, L. 2011. Rethinking design thinking: Part I. Design and Culture, 3(3), 285-306. Martin, R. L. 2009. The design of business: why design thinking is the next competitive advantage. Harvard Business Press. Meinel, C., & Leifer, L. 2010. Design thinking research. Design thinking: understand–improve–apply. Springer, Heidelberg. Read More