Observation 014 - Why Design Thinking Can Save Large Companies

Photo Copyright - https://www.internetreputation.com/

The Background:

Design Thinking is important to large scale companies because most have lost their roots in user centered problem solving.

Almost every company begins with the understanding that there is a user problem and find a solution to that problem. Examples of large companies that were started based on a user need are Gerber Products Company and Ford Motor Company. Dorothy Gerber, having to deal with the difficulties of creating strained foods for her baby, realized others may have the same problem and using her husband’s canning company created a multi-billion dollar market. Henry Ford, realizing that the middle class would want automobile transportation, developed a streamlined manufacturing system that brought the car to the masses.

So why do large companies have such a hard time with Design Thinking? Let us go through the process of company development. As stated above, when a company starts it is usually based around a user problem. At this point the company is run by a individual or small group that understands the user problem and have made it their goal to solve it.

As a company grows the people hired by the company are usually brought in for their specific business skills and become centered on the needs of the company and not the focus of solving user problems. Often MBA’s are brought in to be the highest level leaders and their focus, from training is to be focused on the well being of the company, as a financial entity and user needs fall completely off the radar. Valuation of the company, being stock price, capital structure, the prospect of future earnings, and the market value of its assets, takes center stage and at this point corporate problems take center stage over user problems. Another problem is that companies focus on what they can produce, based on past history, versus being able to pivot to a new set of solutions based on user needs. There is one example where this has not happened and that is IBM. IBM moved from analytical to digital computing, not a huge pivot but still a pivot. Then in this century the longtime hardware focused company pivoted to artificial intelligence and information services.

How Design Thinking can help:

If understood as a method of transforming a company, instead of just a way to create new services, Design Thinking can help companies return to their roots by transforming the inward looking business problems to the outward looking user problems. Now I am going to say something that will sound like an oxymoron in light of the previous sentence. Large companies need to use Design Thinking to change their internal processes from compliance and company value based to employee value based initiatives. I am sure all employees would like to see the company doing things to solve their problems rather than making them spend time on things that they feel add no value. Imagine using Design Thinking in Human Resources to find employee based solutions. Wow would not that be a change! During this process Design Thinking could also be used to become more user centered around user needs, but the company culture must change if the solutions can be based on what is needed and not “what we do well now”. It also requires leadership to see that value, more easily comes from solving user needs rather that worrying about what Wall Street thinks of you.

I am not saying this is not a seismic shift and would not be easy, but it is much easier, in the long term for the business’s health. And there are a few examples out there of large companies running in this manner. The obvious one is Apple, under Steve Jobs. That said, of course he was the founder who always kept user problems as his compass, so maybe there are not so many examples.

One can only hope Design Thinking will truly embed into large companies. It will take brave people at all levels of the organization as well as Design Thinking experts who can facilitate and create the tools needed for these brave individuals. Let us go forward by bringing these companies back to their roots.

Three great external articles as follow up:

Harvard Business Review - It’s Time to Replace the Public Corporation - https://hbr.org/2021/01/its-time-to-replace-the-public-corporation

Harvard Business Review - The Scary Truth About Corporate Survival – https://hbr.org/2016/12/the-scary-truth-about-corporate-survival

Harvard Business Review - The Error at the Heart of Corporate Leadership - https://hbr.org/2017/05/the-error-at-the-heart-of-corporate-leadership

Observation 013 - Who Is the Subject Matter Expert in Design Thinking?

When I am either teaching Design Thinking or facilitation a Design Thinking project, I work with my client to make sure we have real issues that the company is having as the basis of the sessions. Usually these sessions involve 35 to 40 participants from the client, so I am able to break them up into groups of 5 per team. The next step is that assign the issue to each team. I have always given each team an issue that they do not work on or are responsible for. Originally, I did this in order to get a fresh perspective on the issue. Over time my reason for this has become purposeful. At the end of the multi-day session I have a Q&A period to discuss what was learned through the process. Normally someone will say “I thought we have a hard time with this problem as we did not have a subject matter expert in the group.” I normally then say “Oh yes you did!”

Who is the subject matter expert in Design Thinking? The answer is The User. Most people think that an internal subject matter expert is needed, and this is a continuation of the company-centered approach to most problem framing and solving. As Design Thinking is a User-centered approach, and solving the User’s needs is at the forefront of this approach, why should the User not be the subject matter expert?

Though the User is not in the room, the User Research and deliverables that follow (personas, empathy maps, customer journey maps, etc..) create concrete representations of the user and through empathy we use these to create the subject matter expert. How many times, in a session do I not here one of the participants saying “Tom (our persona) would not think that is a helpful solution.”

Take Away:

User Research is a crucial step in the Design Thinking approach and creating a subject matter expert that is believable and understandable will be the difference between success and failure.

Observation 012 - What User-centered Really Means

Observation 012 - What User-centered Really Means

Everywhere you look, Design Thinking is described as User-centered. But what does this really mean?  I would like to make clear how and why Design Thinking is centered on the User and how this acts as valuable methodology to creating successful and innovative new solutions.

In this article, I am going to be using the word “designer” to mean a person or team in organization trying to develop a new idea through Design Thinking.

Why is it important to be user centered and why are most organization not?

The obvious answer is that you are trying to persuade a User to spend the time and money to use whatever new initiative you are creating, whether it be an outward facing product/service or an inward facing business improvement. Besides this answer there is a brand building aspect, where the organization shows they value the User and want to “fell their pain” and help solve it.

Most organizations are stuck in the cognitive biases that I discuss in Observation 006 - Design Thinking: Let the Science Begin – Part 1 . Especially important here is the Egocentric Empathy Gap and The Planning Fallacy biases. To put in in a nutshell, people in the organization think their Users are just like them and that Users love them so much they will be overjoyed by whatever new thing is offered. In every case I have either facilitated or taught a Design Thinking session, the participants have always realized they have been working under these biases and new initiatives they develop from the sessions are never what they thought would occur at the start, but because of the process they feel the new solution has real value.

The other problem is that without the User, people in the organization are left inwardly focused on what they think they can create based on what they already have. Their only wayfinding device to success is creating something on-time and on-budget, no matter whether it solves a user problem or not.

Then how is Design Thinking User-centered?

First let me lay out what I consider the tenets of Design Thinking are. They include User Research, Idea Generation, Visualization and Prototyping. Some people mention Testing, but I fell that flows throughout the entire methodology (Always Be Testing!). Let’s go through each of these and see how they keep the designer User-centered.

User Research:

Okay, this is the easiest one to get. You are using ethnographic research methods with actual Users to not only understand what problems they can articulate but also the problems they can’t. You get to know the day in the life of your User and find their pain points. You gain empathy.

Idea Generation:

After the research not only does the designer now have internal empathy for the User, but through the help of such tools as Personas, Empathy Maps, Customer Journey Maps, etc. they now have the User staring them in the face. With this new understanding, Idea Generation can be made to keep the User in mind, especially during the Convergence phase. Having the designer review the ideas they have created during Divergence through the filter of the Users they have researched keep them focused on best outcomes for the User instead of what idea seems the coolest or the easiest to implement.

Visualization:

Many of the tools used in Visualization help keep the designer User-centered. One example is creating Concept Boards where the idea is visualized as well as the User and the pain points being solved is stated. Another is Storyboards, explaining the solution through sketches with the User interacting with what is to be created.

Also, Visualization allows you to quickly develop solutions that can then be quickly presented to Users to make sure the solution is meeting their needs and wants.

Prototyping:

In many ways Prototyping is similar to Visualization, however the resolution has increased from just visually assessing a solution to being able to immerse in it. At this level, no matter what level of quality the prototype is, the detail of User-centered feedback will assure that the solution will be focused on User needs and wants. It also can often bring about new additions to the solution, that did not rise in the previously because the “reality” of the solution allows the User to think more about the details.

Take Away:

As I discussed in Observation 004 - Misunderstood Failure and the Oort Cloud of Possibilities

Design Thinking is about wayfinding from a problem to a solution(s). By remaining User-centered, a designer makes sure the solutions they are creating meet a real need or want to a real pain point. It creates value because Users are truly understood and therefore respected, not seen as either a necessary evil or just a number. It creates brand respect and, in many cases, creates valuable intellectual property, because the solution is, in fact, new and novel.