To accelerate innovation or transformation projects, companies are increasingly adopting an approach called «Design Thinking». Where does this method come from and what are its real benefits in a product innovation approach, but also more generally, for rethinking the company’s strategy?
Design, an activity for solving problems
Before defining what Design Thinking or “design thinking” is, it is fundamental to understand what design is.
The French Alliance of Designers defines design as “a creative intellectual process whose goal is to address, provide solutions to everyday problems, both small and large, related to economic, social and environmental issues.”
The mission of design is indeed to transform society by providing solutions to the practical problems we encounter every day. It is necessary to succeed in breaking away from the common perception that links design with a mere aesthetic representation: design is not intended to create an object that is “beautiful”, but seeks to combine aesthetics and functionality.
In the 80s, design focused more on aesthetics than on functionality. (in the image of the famous Juicy Salif citrus press by Philippe Starck), The birth of design is inextricably linked to the history of the Industrial Revolution. At that time, the goal was to successfully build everything that makes up the human environment: This is the ambition of the Bauhaus school which aims to bring art and technology together to “build a better world”.
The first question that preoccupies designers is therefore: understand the problem faced by the user of a product or service, In order to provide him with a concrete response and innovate in the solution. To achieve this solution, design has therefore developed its own method: Design thinking, a approach that applies regardless of the object of the innovation: product, system or service.
The principles of Design Thinking
Among the Agile methods The best-known one is Design Thinking, an approach that uses the tools and working methods of designers to foster innovation. It is based on several strong principles that set it apart from a traditional project methodology:
Enter into empathy with the user
To solve the problem faced by the user and adopt a true designer’s attitude, it is necessary to enter into empathy with the user in order to understand the difficulty he is facing, and that he will therefore have to solve it.
Converge, diverge
Design thinking also relies on modes of convergence and divergence: creating opportunities through creativity and ideation techniques, and making choices to accelerate the pace of the project.
Making it tangible to iterate
Making the ideas that emerge from creativity sessions more tangible, especially through prototyping sessions, allows us to envision innovation. Above all, making ideas tangible allows us to iterate (try again, start over). Design thinking is fundamentally iterative. By testing its prototype with users, new problems can arise: we then need to find new solutions to them.
An iterative process allows for faster progress: based on a sequence of prototypes, tests, and analyses, the method allows for obtaining the most successful version of a product/service and, above all, the one that is most in line with user expectations.
Coming from different backgrounds and collaborating
Design thinking brings together different actors around an innovation project: engineers, creatives, marketing professionals – a diversity that allows creativity to be unleashed. The method breaks with traditional project management and management codes by breaking down the corporate structure: the teams are multidisciplinary and have little hierarchy, in order to foster the sharing of ideas and creativity.
Design Thinking in service of innovation
Design thinking is not an intuitive practice. It is an of a methodology based on well-defined steps. If you do a quick search on Google, you will find approaches that highlight 5, 6, or 7 steps… All of these methods are good; you just need to find the one that suits you best. Overall, the first 5 steps are found in all approaches of the Design Thinking method.
- The exploration phase | Immerse yourself in the user’s perspective through field observation methods and interviews
- The definition of the problem | Gathering the results of observations by collecting the experiences of users, in order to identify the major problem they are facing.
- The ideation phase | Find all possible solutions to solve the problem, by using different methods of creativity and brainstorming.
- Prototyping | Prototyping the solution chosen following the ideation phase. The prototype can be physical or digital… The important thing is that it can be tested.
- The testing phase | Test the best solutions resulting from the prototyping phase among the users.
The first module of our Certifying training in agile methods It is also dedicated to Design Thinking to enable the adoption of the mindset of this user-centric approach (UX), its experimentation, and its coordination with other innovation approaches (lean startup, agility).
The role of Design in the company
Design thinking stands in contrast to so-called “analytical” thinking, that is, rational, logical thinking. It is a creative – yet rigorous – thinking that promotes exploration, collaboration, collective intelligence, and experimentation.
For the company, design must become strategic: it is urgent to no longer consider design as the simple “graphic” layer of the product or service; to not confine design to a single profession but to integrate it at all levels, and to make it a force that serves the company’s strategy and positioning.
By listening to user expectations, the approach to innovation through design succeeds in combining what is desirable from a customer perspective with what is economically viable and technically feasible. The impacts of integrating design are both quantitative (increased sales, for example) and qualitative (improvement in the quality of life at work, customer satisfaction…).
Integrating design into your company's strategic vision allows, among other things:
- to differentiate your products and services to gain a competitive advantage
- to inspire greater creativity among your employees
- to improve communication between teams and managers through collaborative work modes
To achieve these results, the entire organization must be involved in the design process. Managers should therefore encourage its integration at all levels of the company, both from an operational and strategic perspective!
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