An extract from Tim Brown’s Change by Design.
One way to help design thinking diffuse throughout an organization is for designers to make their clients part of the experience. We do this because we find that we invariably get much better results when the client is on board and actively participating.
But be forewarned: it can be messy! We overheard one client make a frantic call back to her office, “These people have no process!” A few weeks later, she had become a convert, promoting design thinking within her own company — an organization renowned for its structure, discipline and process.
What’s the best way to orient first-time visitors to this new and unfamiliar terrain? Some navigational landmarks, if not a road map?
I already introduced you to the idea that a design team should expect to move through three overlapping spaces over the course of a project: an inspiration space, in which insights are gathered from every possible source; an ideation space, in which those insights are translated into ideas; and an implementation space, in which the best ideas are developed into a concrete, fully conceived plan of action. Again, these are overlapping spaces rather than sequential stages of a lockstep methodology. Insights rarely arrive on schedule, and opportunities must be seized at whatever inconvenient time they present themselves.
When a fresh team ventures out into the field to collect information, it is full of optimism. The process of synthesis — the ordering of data and the search for patterns can be frustrating. But then things begin to pick up. The process peaks when the team begins to produce prototypes. Even if they don’t look so good, don’t work properly, or have too many features or too few, they are visible, tangible signs of progress. Eventually, once the right idea has been agreed upon, the project team settles down to a state of pragmatic optimism punctuated by moments of extreme panic. The scary bits never completely go away, but the experienced design thinker knows what to expect and is not undone by the occasional emotional slump. Design thinking is rarely a graceful leap from height to height; it tests our emotional constitution and challenges our collaborative skills, but it can reward perseverance with spectacular results.
CONVERGENT AND DIVERGENT THINKING
Convergent thinking is a practical way of deciding among existing alternatives. What convergent thinking is not so good at, however, is probing the future and creating new possibilities.
If the convergent phase of problem solving is what drives us toward solutions, the objective of divergent thinking is to multiply options to create choices. To have a good idea, you must first have lots of ideas!
The point is not that we must all become right brain artists practicing divergent thinking and hoping for the best; there is a good reason why design education draws in equal measure upon art and engineering. The process of the design thinker, rather, looks like a rhythmic exchange between the divergent and convergent phases, with each subsequent iteration less broad and more detailed than the previous one. In the divergent phase, new options emerge. In the convergent phase, it is just the reverse: now its time to eliminate options and make choices. It can be painful to let a once promising idea fall away, and this is where diplomatic skills of project leaders are often tested.
ANALYSIS AND SYNTHESIS
Fact collecting and data gathering lead to an accumulation of information that can be staggering. But then what? At some point the team must settle down and in an intense period of synthesis — over hours, weeks or more — begin to organise, interpret, and weave these many strands of data into a coherent story.
Synthesis, the act of extracting meaningful patterns from masses of raw information, is a fundamentally creative act; the data are just that — data — and the facts never speak for themselves.
In every case we may think of the designer as a master storyteller whose skill is measured by his or her ability to craft a compelling, consistent, and believable narrative. It’s no accident that writers and journalists now often work alongside mechanical engineers and cultural anthropologists in design teams.
These are the seeds of design thinking — a continuous movement between convergent and divergent processes, on the one hand, and between the analytical and synthetic, on the other.
But that is by no means the end of the story. Attention must be shifted upward, from teams and individuals to companies. We might think of this as moving from the organisation of design to the design of organisations.
AN ATTITUDE OF EXPERIMENTATION
A creative team must be given the time, the space, and the budget to make mistakes. They are open to new possibilities, alert to new directions, and always willing to propose new solutions. A tolerance for risk taking has as much to do with the culture of an organization as with its business strategy.
To view failed experiments as “wasteful,” “inefficient,” or “redundant” may be a symptom of a culture focused on efficiency over innovation and a company at risk of collapsing into a downward spiral of incrementalism.
What is however called for is a judicious blend of bottom-up experimentation and guidance from above.
The rules of this approach are as simple to state as they are challenging to apply:
- The best ideas emerge when the whole organisational ecosystem — not just its designers and engineers and certainly not just management — has room to experiment.
- Those most exposed to changing externalities (new technology, shifting consumer base, strategic threats or opportunities) are the ones best placed to respond and most motivated to do so.
- Ideas should not be favoured based on who creates them.
- Ideas that create a buzz should be favoured. Indeed, ideas should gain a vocal following, however small, before being given organisational support.
- The “gardening” skills of senior leadership should be used to tend, prune, and harvest ideas. MBAs call this “risk tolerance.” I call it the top-down bit.
- An overarching purpose should be articulated so that the organisation has a sense of direction and innovators don’t feel the need for constant supervision.
Suggestion boxes at best tend to yield small and incremental ideas. What is needed is a serious commitment in the form of a project sustained by appropriate resources and driven by definable goals.
A CULTURE OF OPTIMISM
The obvious counterpart to an attitude of experimentation is a climate of optimism. Up-and-coming leaders, for example, steer clear of projects with uncertain outcomes out of fear that participation might damage their chances for advancement. Project teams are nervous, suspicious, and prone to second-guessing what management “really” wants. Leadership may also find that no one is willing to step forward without permission — which usually means defeat before the start.
Without optimism — the unshakable belief that things could be better than they are — the will to experiment will be continuously frustrated until it withers.
To harvest the power of design thinking, individuals, teams and whole organisations have to cultivate optimism. People have to believe that it is within their power (or their team) to create new ideas, that will serve unmet needs, and that will have a positive impact.
Optimism requires confidence, and confidence is built on trust. And trust, as we know, flows in both directions.
To find out whether a company is optimistic, experimental, and attuned to risk, people should simply use their senses: look for a colourful landscape of messy disorder rather than a suburban grid of tidy beige cubicles. Listen for bursts of raucous laughter rather than a constant drone of subdued conversation. In general, try to be alert to the nodes where it all comes together, because that is where new ideas originate. I love to slip downstairs and observe members of a team at work building prototypes out of Legos or enacting an improvisational skit to explore a new service interaction. Above all, I love to be allowed to sit in on a brainstorm.
BRAINSTORMING
There are rules for brainstorming.
- Defer judgement
- Encourage wild ideas
- Stay focused on the topic
And build on the ideas of others! In an experiment with 8 to 10 year old kids. When boys and girls were split up into 2 groups, the girls group came up wit more than 200 ideas whereas boys barely managed fifty. Boys, at this age, find it more difficult to focus and to listen — attributes essential to genuine collaboration. The girls were just the opposite. The boys, so eager to get their own ideas out there, were barely conscious of the ideas coming from their fellow brainstormers; the girls, without prompting, conducted a spirited but nonetheless serial conversation in which each idea related to the one that came next. They were sparking off one another and getting better ideas as a result.
Brainstorming is not necessarily the ultimate technique for idea generation, and it cannot be built into the structure of ever organisation. But it does prove its worth when the goal is to open up a broad spectrum of ideas. Other approaches are important for making choices, but nothing beats a good brainstorming session for beating them.
VISUAL THINKING
Design professionals spend years learning how to draw. Drawing practice is not so much in order to illustrate ideas, which can be done with cheap software. Instead, designers learn to draw so that they can express their ideas. Words and numbers are fine, but only drawing can simultaneously reveal both the functional characteristics of an idea and its emotional content.
To draw an idea accurately, decisions have to be made that can be avoided by even the most precise language; aesthetic issues have to be addressed that cannot be resolved by the most elegant mathematical calculation. Whether the task at hand is a hair dryer or a annual report, drawing forces decisions.
All children draw. Somewhere in the course of becoming logical, verbally oriented adults, they unlearn this elemental skill. Experts in creative problem solving such as Bob McKim, deBono, devoted much of their creative energy to mind maps, two-by-two matrices, and other visual frameworks that help explore and describe ideas in valuable ways.
When I use drawing to express an idea, I get different results than if I try to express it with words, and I usually get to them more quickly.
TO POST, OR NOT TO POST-IT
The techniques of the design thinker — brainstorming, visual thinking — contribute to the divergent process of creating choices. It is here that one of the simplest tools available for convergence comes into play: the Post-it note.
Once every idea is gathered together for a project review, there needs to be a process for selecting the ideas that are strongest and hold the greatest promise. Storyboards help — panels that illustrate, almost like comic strips, the sequence of events a user might experience in checking into a hotel, opening a bank account, or using a newly purchased electronic device. But sooner or later some level of consensus is called for, and it rarely comes about by debate or executive fiat. What is needed is some kind of tool to extract the intuition of the group, and this is where a generous supply of Post-it notes cannot be beat.
At IDEO we use them to submit ideas to the “butterfly test.”
Lets imagine an entire wall of a project room has been covered with promising ideas. Each participant is given a small number of small Post-it ballots to attach to the ideas they think should move forward. Members of the team flutter about the room inspecting the tableau of ideas, and before long it is clear which ones have attracted the most “butterflies.” The process is not about democracy, it is about maximizing the capacities of teams to converge on the best solutions.
Though we all have deadlines all the time, in the divergent and exploratory phase of design thinking, deadlines take on an extra level of importance. The deadline is the fixed point on the horizon where everything stops and the final evaluation begins. These points may seem arbitrary and unwelcome but an experienced project leader knows how to use them to turn options into decisions. It’s unwise to have a deadline every day, at least in the earlier phases of the project. Nor does it work to stretch it out for six months. It takes judgement to determine when a team will reach a point where management input, reflexion, redirection, and selection are most likely to be valuable.
INTEGRATIVE THINKING
Design thinking is neither art nor science nor religion. It is the capacity, ultimately, for integrative thinking.
Thinkers who exploit opposing ideas to construct a new solution enjoy a built-in advantage over thinkers who can consider only one model at a time. Integrative thinkers know how to widen the scope of issues salient to the problem. They resist the “either/or” in favor of the “both/and” and see non-linear and multi-directional relationships as a source of inspiration, not contradiction. The most successful leaders “embrace the mess.” They allow complexity to exist, at least as they search for solutions, because complexity is the most reliable source of creative opportunities. The traits of management leaders, in other words, match the traits I have ascribed to design thinkers. The skills that make for a great design thinker — the ability to spot patterns in the mess of complex inputs, to synthesize new ideas from fragmented parts; to empathize with people different from ourselves — can all be learned.
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