General UX

Selling Design Thinking to Management: Where to start.

“Design Thinking’ what? I can’t draw.”

If you’ve ever tried explaining design thinking to executives, you’ve probably heard some version of this.

Drawing abilities aside, in some ways “design thinking” is a misnomer. Although the method was born in the design world, it has long ago ceased to be the “designers” domain. And, while a lot of the tools embedded in the design thinking process come from the design world, the process itself is fundamentally a way to develop products and services in a customer-centric way.

Yet, Here’s what usually happens today: an executive says, “wouldn’t be interesting if……?” His direct reports rummage through reams of data in expensive industry reports, or some such quantitative data source. They come back with a nice powerpoint presentation about why the idea will work (or not). Decisions get made.

Where’s the customer in all this?

The outcome of applying design thinking has been proven through different case studies from various company sizes and industries such as Apple, Microsoft, IBM, IKEA, AirBnB, Starbucks, and others. Design thinking supplements existing quantitative methods with a qualitative approach of focused on identifying customer needs. Design thinking practitioners use data from customer conversations & observations to create validated products & services that fulfill today’s needs, anticipate future needs, and delight every day.

No expensive industry reports required.

*Photo by Amy Hirschi.