Take aways from “Design Thinking”
I have a long running fascination with IDEO, the design consultancy behind many of the world’s most inspiring and functional products/services. As a business junkie, I consume lots of literature on the processes used by companies to innovate. If you share my interests, I suggest “Design Thinking” by Tim Brown, CEO of IDEO, and the recently appointed head of the Stanford Design School. My creative license, analysis, and interpretation of his work appears below:
1. The role of design has evolved. It is not or at least should not be an aftethought to conception of a new product or solution. Failure to adhere to this rule creates GM vehicles like the Pontiac Aztek. Indeed, designers should be intimately involved with the creation of the solution and not merely the boxing/packaging/marketing.
2. Frequent prototyping is critical. Whether you write legal briefs or design boxer briefs, it behooves you to “learn about the strengths and weaknesses of the idea and to identify new directions that further prototypes might take.”
3. You can reduce costs, increase revenues, and do a better job of pleasing your customers if you pay attention to process innovations. I would credit much of Target’s success to improving the experience of shopping. Paying attention to the procedure, whether formal or informal, used by your customers and your employees can give you much insight into how to improve experience.
4. Speaking of performance, experience, and innovation, you might do well by looking to how other industries have solved the problems you are trying to solve. A Professor of mine, Bernard Black, has referenced the airline industry as a model for how to reduce physician error and consequently the costs of our medical care system. In order to look effectively to other industries, you’ll have to take a more abstract view of the problem you are trying to solve.
5. Creative genius can be boiled down to “hard work augmented by a creative human-centered discovery process and followed by iterative cycles of prototyping, testing, and refinement.”
Those are the first FIVE , for the next SIX take aways, please click here …. Rich, if I broke a rule, let me know 
Email This
