Introduction to Design Thinking

When people ask me, what is design
thinking? Or what can we take away from design
thinking? I always go back to the, the old there's a
Gregory Treverton who's a, at the RAND Corporation, thinking about policy
problems and global policies specifically. And he said there are two types of problems, there are mysteries and there
are puzzles. Puzzles are problems where when you have the right level of data disclosure, when
you have that absolute number, the problem can
be solved. So this is in, in, in his example he said,
you know, Goofy videos. That could be a challenge it's finding
Osama Bin Laden. If we had GPS coordinates, we'd know where
he is. There's another category, a problem called
mysteries. Where there is no single piece of data. There is no level of data disclosure that
will actually solve the problem. In fact, there might be too much data, and it's about interpreting all of the data
that's there. And that's a richer, harder problem that
requires more system thinking. That requires protopyting and piloting. And, and that's really where the designers
are, are often more adapt at playing, is within a
situation like that. And the example he gives is rebuilding a
raft. There's no single piece of data that's
going to make it easier. It's just about trying different things
and experimenting, and trying to move forward towards a
solution. We're never going to have enough
information. We're never going to have the right information. We just have to interpret what we have now
and do the best that we can. And I think that when we start to resolve
those. Is when good things happen. But, but certainly it's the mysteries that
get designers excited. Too often in the corporate world, there's
the belief that you know? We can use these powerpoint reports and
these charts and these you know? Statistically significant surveys surveys. To generate ideas from them.
And in many cases, that, that does work.
for incremental improvements. But if, if you want something more
disruptive, you really have to go into the field and, and find
something proprietary. And experience it for yourself, and see it
for yourself. >> Yes we have abilities that are
becoming more valuable, because they have certain
attributes to them. They, they are difficult to rutinize,
difficult to turn into an algorithm. And, and, when you can't make, when you
can't. force them into a set of rules when you can't essentially create an algorithm
for doing them then that makes them hard to
outsource and hard to automate, and therefore more
valuable. So it's things like design and design
thinking. it's things like narrative and story,
which I think is, is tremendously overlooked and undervalued in
a whole range of business functions. symphonic thinking ability which is big
picture thinking, pattern recognition, multi-ness, multi-discipline,
multi-cultural, multi-lingual, a sense of breadth. Empathy, which is, at least to me one of
the one's I'm most interested in, which is the capacity to stand in someone's
shoes, see with their eyes, feel with their
hearts. again, very difficult to routinize, very
difficult to automate or outsource. play, laughter, humor and games, and then
also a meaning, a sense of purpose, a sense of significance. And these, these abil, precisely because
these abilities are hard to turn into a set of rules. that makes them harder to teach in the
explicit way that we think of teaching something, but there are
things that can be learned. >> There is not necessarily a great
deal of a, a, agreement on what design thinking
is, but a in in general a or, or I should say
that even if that's the right term that we should be using. Some designers get upset at design
thinking and some other people, especially business people sort of get put
off, like they're not thinkers. I think that if you reduced it, design
thinking is a way of approaching a challenge that offers just a, a, another
skill set and another approach. That's complementary to other forms of thinking, other forms of product
development. And it centers around some, some constructs that come from the design
world. So, both convergent and divergent thinking
prototyping and iteration. a certain kind of customer research that's
much more ethnographical qualitative. All those things together sort of form a
rubric of what design thinking is about. If the whole of business traditionally was about design thinking, then there
would be a whole new movement about analytical
thinking or quantitative analysis. It's too much to say that it's the answer
to every problem. it also isn't accurate to portray it as the only way of thinking, doing, managing,
leading, etcetera. it really is one half of, or one part of
this holistic approach to management and leadership,
that has been missing for a long time. So, by integrating design thinking into
management, into leadership. By all means it has a tremendous amount of
promise to integrate and balance out a full set of
skills. But it only because it's been missing all along, not because there's something
inherently incredible about it. >> How does design thinking fit with traditional strategy, in
organizations today? And for me it boils down to two things. What traditional strategy has given us, is
it's given us strong analytics, great data from
which to make the most logical of decisions
about where we need to move in the future. What design thinking gives us, is it gives
us curiosity. The ability to look out into the world and
find new solutions to traditional problems, it also
gives us the power of observation. Which takes data and puts it into context
of a given situation. A given point in time, and I think that's
where the two can be married in a really
significant way. What does design think have to, have to
contribute to business? I, I think for me it boils down to the
fact that there is, the types of challenges our leaders face today, are so
vastly different than the ones we've faced in, in previous
times. And so you take wicked challenges like
sustainability. In this challenge we won't solve our way
out of in our lifetime in business, its always
going to be in there. And so design thinking gives you
flexibility it allows you to be curious it keeps you on
trend and on point with where that wicked problem is today, and it allows you to generate prototypes and
solutions. That may or may not be the answer, but
they'll move you in the right direction. >> I think one of the more interesting
examples is in a giant company like Proctor and Gamble, which I think has done some really, really interesting
things. I mean, if you think about empathy, there
is a move in market research of all kinds toward
more ethnographic resarch, of really understanding how somebody uses a product
or a service. Getting in that person's head. and so P and G, and other places as well
are, are doing research that's really about how do you understand
the product from the user's point of view. And that can involve not giving people
literal questions and watching from behind a two-way mirror to see how they
respond, but actually going into they're homes and seeing. How did they use toothpaste, how did they
use shaving cream I think that's P and G and other's have
done that. and, and P and G has a made a big push on
design thinking essentially making it part of
what it means to be at that company. Now at the same time they haven't
abandoned, serious business metrics. I mean, you still gotta make money, you
still gotta hit your numbers, you still have to the
products still have to perform. but they do a lot of other interesting things where people have a certain amount
of autonomy to try to try a new approach to, to research or experiment with a new
product. So I think the fact that I, I, I like that as an example because it's such a behemoth
of a company. And, a lot of times when we see size, we
say there's no way any of this will work in a place like this,
it's only for really small operations. And I think P and G is a good example of
doing it in a different way. >> So, design thinking's been used in mars in a
couple of different ways. I break it down in terms of what we
actually do. And how we work. And so on the side of what we actually do,
we have a GM in one of our Latin America businesses
who took her 100 employees. We call them associates, but they're
basically employees, out into the field into channels, retail channels that
we currently don't have products in. And she asked them to use the basic components of design thinking like
observation, ethnography. question asking and interviews to help
understand what could we do to get in this channel. And how might this channel allow us to
make a big difference in the way our products
reach our, our customers. So that's a what piece. On the other end of the, of the scale is
how. The how we work. And so when we look at organizations
today, it's vastly changing. Mars has gone through huge transformation
in terms of the way that we work. One of our GMs in the AsiaPac region, actually took his top 40 leaders through a breakthrough thinking process,
understanding how do we allow new ideas to, to become a part of
the challenges around what we work. Things like how do we attract new talent? Things like, how do we need to reward our
employees and our associates to do the kind of work we need
to get done? Things like, how do we have to show up as
a leadership team in our meetings, to actually bring
the best and the most potential to bear? And so what they did was they worked those
challenges, which typically aren't a part of traditional, idea generation,
traditional brainstorming. But that was an example of where they applied design thinking clarifying a
challenge. Ideation, prototyping to the how we work
as oppose to just what we do. >> I am actually fairly bullish about
those, the stain power of design thinking. I really I am. only because if you follow the, the
trajectory of just the, the discussion of business
and design. it isn't like one of those management fads
where you can kind of see it fading away, where fewer people
are talking about it. You see that it has this pretty steady
trajectory, and I don't think that it's risen too
quickly. A lot of times you have a business,
management fad that, that has a kind of super nova trajectory where it explodes and everybody is talking about it
and then it disappears. Whereas, I think design thinking has had a
slower, steadier trajectory and I think that more people are, I think more people
truly are, are, are understanding it. Now I, I think that the phrase of design thinking still is not necessarily the most
resonant phrase. I do think that even the word design in
some people's heads, is freighted with the meaning of, of sort of ornamentation or
prettifying things. And so I'm, I'm glad to see the
introduction of thinking along with design, but it really is just a form
of problem solving. >> Inefficiency and ambiguity are both
conditions of the design process. There has to be time for reflection and
disagreement, and these are these are core to great new big ideas. But reflection and disagreement are the
things that make [LAUGH] processes inefficient. And it's important to have time within,
within your process just to take a step back and look
at. What did we create, where are the
connections that we're not seeing, can we bring these two things together in ways
that we hadn't thought of before. I mean, that's really where great ideas
come from. You also have to have time for
disagreement. Because good design thinking is about bringing very different points of view
together. So that you have that diverse set of
inputs. You know, if you want efficiency, you get
everybody who thinks the same way, and they'll get to a
decision quickly. And that, that works, you know, 80% of the
time. But for that, that 20% of the time where you, you need something very
disruptive, very innovative, very creative, you're going to have to put up with a little bit more of the
ambiguity. That's ultimately what a successful leader
will be able to do, is understand there is some projects that
can follow this very linear, straightforward. But others that require a little bit more of an open mind and a little more
creativity. >> I just think that the metaphor of
the algorythm is really powerful. And we're always looking for the
algorithm. We're always looking for the set of rules
and techniques and steps we can follow. Or I give a lesson of the analogy. I was looking for the perfect recipe,
okay? Add these five ingredients, mix three
times, cook at a certain temperature and all will
be right with the world. And that's not it. If that is our, what we're after it, we're
leading down the wrong path. It is, it is more kin to, as you say value
system. It is more kin, I think in some ways to a,
a literacy in a way. It's a matter of understanding the
vocabulary, and having the syntax, and, and understanding how the language
works, and being able to express yourself in that language. That is that a difference between
mastering a language and actually merely knowing the
rules of grammer. one is a very impoverished learning. The other one is reaching robust. And we need to steer in that direction and
recognize that the search for the recipe for the algorithm,
is essentially an impossible search.

To illustrate the design thinking process
that we've been talking about I'd like to tell you a story about
design thinking in action. As we go through that story I
will note different tools and approaches that are being used. Then at the end of the session I'll tell
you about some additional resources we have available so
that you can learn more about them. Now, you can use design thinking
to solve all sorts of problems. Let's walk through one
example to illustrate what it looks like in the real world. To do so, we're going to travel to
Denmark, a country long recognized for its distinctive attention to design. The Danes,
like citizens in most developed countries, recognized that the aging of their
population presents many challenges. One of these is serving the more
than 125,000 senior citizens who rely on government sponsored meals. Danish municipalities
deliver subsidised meals to people who suffer from
a reduced ability to function. Whether that is due to illness,
age, or other conditions. Many of these seniors have
nutritional challenges and a poor quality of life because
they simply do not eat enough. An estimated 60% of elders living in
assisted living have poor nutrition. An estimated 20%
are actually malnourished. In response to this growing social
problem, the municipality of Hustobrow decided to dedicate their efforts to
improve meal service for seniors. And they invited Danish innovation firm
Hatch and Bloom to work with them to figure out how to improve the nutrition
of their elderly population. The municipal leadership saw the project
initially as straightforward. In order to get seniors to eat more, the
current menu just needed improving, and they wanted Hatch & Bloom to ask elderly
clients about their menu preferences. This is a great example of how too narrow
a definition of the problem to be solved can drive a lot of innovation right out
the window before you even get started. The opportunity turned
out to be much greater. And what Hatch & Bloom ultimately produced
was much more than just a new menu. It was a completely redesigned meal
service that offered higher quality, more flexibility and increased choice. This dramatic reframing of the opportunity
emerged from the user-centered design approach that Hatch and Bloom brought
to the process, in which they discovered that merely fixing the menu
wouldn't solve the nutrition problem. Let's look at some specifics
about how they did it. They began by exploring what is? Digging deep into seniors behaviors,
needs, and wishes. Using observation and
interviewing to identify their elderly clients' living situation and
try and get at their unarticulated needs. The approach they chose
to use was ethnographic. The specific tool they
used was Journey Mapping. The Journey Mapping tool
follows a customer or stakeholder as they receive a product or
service or go through a process. It pays attention to what
designers call the job to be done. In some ways, journey mapping is not that
different than the kind of flow charts or supply chains we might use in business,
but there are some crucial differences. Journey mapping recognizes that most of us are trying to do jobs that
are both functional and emotional. A lot of the unarticulated needs turn
out to be on the emotional side, making this tool very valuable for uncovering hidden opportunities to
create better value for people. Hatch and Bloom used journey
mapping to trace the experience of the elderly from beginning to end. They rode with food service
employees who delivered the meal. They accompanied them into the homes. They watched as clients prepared the food,
added ingredients, set the table, and then finally ate the meal. They also interviewed the supervisor
of the food preparation process in her workplace. And what they saw in
the kitchen surprised them. Working in a public service kitchen
was a low status job in Denmark and kitchen employees seemed demoralized and
unmotivated. It was not going to be enough
to focus on the needs of the elderly team members realized. They would need to address the problems of
the employees producing the meals as well. And so the team decided it was
important to broaden the scope of the project beyond just
improving the menu and they helped the municipal officials
understand why this was necessary. From this dual focus on the people
preparing the meals and on the seniors receiving them, a set of
interesting insights began to emerge. They discovered that both the seniors and the kitchen workers had important
emotional needs that were not being met. They were both experiencing feelings
of disconnection and alienation. The social stigma of even
having to receive such assistance weighed heavily on the clients. They were embarrassed. Help for cleaning was considered
acceptable in Danish culture. But help for
more personal needs was much less so. It also mattered who
was providing the help. In Denmark, a senior hoped to receive
assistance from a relative or friend. If that was not possible
perhaps one could hire someone. But it was the last resort to receive
assistance from the government. Also painful to seniors was the loss
of control over their food choices. We discover that deciding
what kind of food they put in their mouths was the second most important
thing for the elderly after taking care of their personal hygiene, the head of
the Hatch and Bloom team told us. And they hated eating alone, because it reminded them that their
families were no longer around. All of these factors contributed
directly to the nutrition problem and put it in a broader context. The less they enjoyed their situation,
the smaller their appetites. The kitchen workers, Hatch and Bloom
learned, were making the same boring, low-cost meals over and over,
not because they lack skills or because they just didn't care, but
because of the perceived economic and logistical constraints that prevented them
from doing something more interesting. The team also found
positive things however. They discovered that the generation
of seniors they studied was very responsible and
capable in the kitchen. And had a key sense of the seasons and
positive associations with seasonal food such as apples in the fall
and strawberries in the summer. They also often tried to customize
their meals by adding spices or using their own potatoes or vegetables. The Hatch & Bloom team
also discovered that the kitchen workers really did care and
wanted to do a good job. Once team members had finished
their ethnographic research, they moved into the what if stage. For this,
they wanted to enlist a broader group of stakeholders in understanding
the nature of the challenges and participating in creating a new and
better meal service. They wanted to co-create with
their important stakeholders. To accomplish this,
they had a series of workshops that brought together a diverse
set of stakeholders. It included public officials,
volunteers, experts in elderly issues, kitchen workers, and
employees of residential care facilities. Together, they reviewed
the ethnographic research and developed insights and
design criteria to form idea generation. This kind of co-creation is
another important design tool. Inviting stakeholders into the creation
process creates ownership and engagement, as well as
producing better ideas. The co-creation tool will turn out to be
useful in every one of the four questions, as you'll see later. In the second question, Hatch and
Bloom used a brainstorming process in which facilitators used analogies
as trigger questions to help shift participant's mental models of
food service as they generated ideas. The facilitators ask participants to
think of the kitchen as a restaurant. Triggering a creative rush. The kitchen workers,
they assumed then, must be the chefs. And if they were the chefs,
who were the waiters? This began to bring ideas like
the condition of the vehicles used for meal delivery into the discussion. They continued to work with
the restaurant analogy as they considered the food itself. Until that point, the menus had been
minimalist factual descriptions of the food,
perhaps detailing how it was prepared. For instance,
one item read liver potatoes and sauce. That's not exactly a description that
will make your mouth water, is it? But now participants in
the workshop started to wonder, maybe we should look at
actual restaurant menus. Maybe we should describe our meals in
a completely different, more enticing way. The third workshop moved them
into the what wows stage, and continued to emphasize
the design tool of co-creation. But this time, co-creation was used to
test ideas rather than generate them. This third workshop was
much more hands on. And involved prototyping
at least in a rough way, the solutions coming out
of the what if workshops. For example Hatch and Bloom worked with participants on
three different versions of the menu. Asking them which they liked and how
they felt about various aspects such as the colors they favored and whether
they preferred photos or illustrations. They used a design tool
called visualization to make these different options
feel more real to participants. Visualization is one of
the essential design tools. It's not about drawing,
a skill that many of us don't have. It's about using imagery to make
an abstract idea more public and more concrete, so that it will be more visible,
clear, and understandable to others. Hatch and Bloom didn't talk to
people about the different options. They showed them the different options. They then moved into what works. Testing prototypes with
different combinations and ways of presenting the food
with actual customers. The learning from this initial
set of experiments, resulted in a second project with some quick
packaging design changes that allowed for more modular meals, where components were
separated instead of being mixed together. The process also yielded new uniforms for
employees and a new name, the Good Kitchen,
that reflected everybody's aspirations. It also included new communication
channels using newsletters and comment cards to keep clients and the kitchen
staff in close touch with each other. And so a process that began with
a simple mandate, fix the menu, evolved into something much more significant
as it moved through the four questions. Using design tools like journey mapping, co-creation, prototyping and
experimentation. That process yielded a host
of dramatic changes. A new menu, new uniforms for
staff, new feedback mechanisms. But equally important it made
everyone involved cognoscente of the real people they were serving or
being served by. Today who's to browse seniors know
who is shaping their meatballs and preparing the gravy in the kitchen. And this relationship between
the kitchen staff and the customers. Which is now both personal and professional, has increased
greatly the satisfaction of both. The results speak for themselves. Reorganizing the menu and improving
the descriptions of the meals drove a 500% increase in meal orders
in the first week alone. But the results were much more
about the number of meals served. One of the most important elements of
the transformation was this shift in employees' perception of themselves and
their work. The kitchen workers are now much
more satisfied and motivated. As a result customers
are happier with their food. If you have professional pride,
you'll also cook good food. Anne Marie Neilson the director
of the Good Kitchen told us. Good food has to come from the heart. What we're talking about in
a Good Kitchen story is about more than just developing new products or services. We're talking about innovating
the entire business model. I'd like you to spend a few minutes
now listening to Jeremy Alexis, a professor at the Chicago Institute
of Design as he shares his views on the importance
of business model innovation.