It’s always fun to step back and as some big questions — especially in January. I keep pondering the relationship between design thinking and business thinking. How do they interact?
Helen Walters is an engaging writer and speaker. She is the former editor of Innovation and Design at Bloomberg BusinessWeek. I just finished re-reading her speech to the November Design Thinkers event in Toronto. You can find her speech at her blog site — it is the Nov 12 post — Design and Business: The Bottom Line: http://helenwalters.wordpress.com/
She uses this opportunity to take stock of some of the challenges facing the contemporary design community that are perhaps preventing its wider adoption within the business community. I read it as a call to action for designers to get to the party with business — and this makes sense given that Helen is speaking to a design audience.
Helen hits hard at some of the challenges…
1. The term DESIGN THINKING itself — vague and confusing for clients and everyone, sometimes portrayed as a silver bullet for business and innovation, and how do you “teach it”?
2. The confusion around design as a noun and design as a verb. Design as a noun value-adds to business in marketing, innovation and organizational approaches. Design as a verb is about the thinking processes around business — being embedded in every discipline and being used as a way of problem solving.
3. Many designers have attitude. But then — who doesn’t? Helen gives many examples of designer attitude and professional immaturity.
4. Design jargon and our challenge of communicating about design to others — especially business people. Designers must prove that they’re prepared to speak a different language in order to get their point across. Roberto Verganti gave me this advice when I met him last spring: business students have a hard time understanding designers and design language.
I do have a few quibbles with Helen… she writes: “…clearly it’s smart to teach design principles to MBAs”. What does that mean and is it dangerous? This is addressing design as a noun — making sure that graduating MBAs understand that design shouldn’t just lurk in the creative department but it can value add all around the organization.
For me, the most important focus isn’t about teaching design principles — it is about how design thinking processes can enrich business thinking. It is about trying to embed the thinking processes that are common to design and hybridize them to be useful to business.
Having just attempted to embed design thinking into the Sauder MBA Program and to run the d.studio, I am continuing to reflect on what worked and what didn’t. I was really trying to send the message that it is about each individual being aware of their own thinking processes as a sentient being — and being open to continuing to shift, enrich and critique those processes.
That is why design thinking in many different forms does belong in business.
I agree that she would be devaluing the importance of Design-thinking by simply focusing on the “noun” rather than the thinking process. For me, it has the potential to be as revolutionary as the scientific method was/is. A process that has creativity and innovation grounded in empathy as key components has enormous potential for not only economic reasons, but for improving the quality of life for all.
ummmmmmmmmmmm khubehaaaaaaaaa fhgaat un vasataaa in adabiate yk meghdar ezaf b nazar mire3 albate b dalile shirine dar3 mazkur ghabele eghmaze ama khob age mishod y karish kardam shirinie dar3 mazkur mozaaf mishod (saeed jan sharmande zudtar nayumadam in nete zoghalie man gahi khoshesh nemiad blodemuno baz nemikonee (( kolan dastet dard nakone
Well said. Have you got any ideas about how we can get more dialogue and action on the Community of Practice site? How do we get the word out about spending more time in education on thinking processes?