Design Thinking For Dummies

• Develop your unique design thinking mindset
• Build a creative toolbox that inspires new ideas
• Examine how design thinking applies across industries

Challenge your creativity methods

Design thinking is not just the property of graphic designers. This approach to creating solutions by thinking from the customer perspective can lead to new and innovative ideas that old methods could not approach. Design Thinking For Dummies provides a jump-start to get you and your organization on the path to new creativity. Written by a design thinking thought leader, this book helps you through the design thinking cycle and shows how it can help any industry.

Inside...

• Building creative environments
• Facilitating design thinking workshops
• Implementing your solutions
• Applying design thinking to business
• Tips for transforming your organization

Introduction 1 About This Book 1 Conventions Used in This Book 2 Foolish Assumptions 2 What You Don't Have to Read 3 How This Book Is Organized 3 Part 1: Getting Started with Design Thinking 3 Part 2: The Problem Phases 4 Part 3: The Solution Phases 4 Part 4: The Part of Tens 4 Icons Used in This Book 4 Beyond the Book 5 Where to Go from Here 5 Part 1: Getting Started with Design Thinking 7 Chapter 1: Everything You Need to Know About Design Thinking 9 This Is Design Thinking 9 More than just design 10 More than just a workshop 10 More than just brainstorming 11 More than just methods 11 Seeing What Design Thinking Can Do 12 Developing new products 12 Creating new services 12 Designing new business models 13 Designing social and organizational innovations 13 Establishing a culture of innovation 14 Understanding the Basics of Design Thinking 14 Following and communicating the principles 14 Getting an overview of the whole process 15 Going through the process in detail 17 Start Design Thinking Right Away 24 Assembling the team 24 Defining team roles and communication practices 25 Planning the project work 25 Furnishing the work environment 26 Asking for support 27 Chapter 2: Understanding the Principles of Design Thinking 29 Focusing on People Early On 30 More than Traditional Market Research 31 Finding the Lead User 32 Actively Involving the Lead User 35 Developing Empathy 36 Illustrating Ideas 37 Failing in Order to Learn 38 Ensuring Diversity on the Team 39 Offering Team-Oriented and Creative Workspaces 39 Making the Process Flexible Yet Focused 40 Chapter 3: Creating Ideal Conditions 43 Ensuring a Positive Attitude 43 Creating the vision for the project 44 Communicating the vision 44 Encouraging the Willingness to Change 45 Arousing Curiosity 45 Presenting the task as a challenge 46 Presenting the task as a reward 46 Presenting the task in a comprehensible fashion 47 Training curiosity 47 Asking For (and Receiving) Support from the Top 48 Asking For (and Receiving) Creative Freedom 49 Enabling Fast Decisions in the Design Thinking Process 49 Setting up the steering committee 50 Clarifying responsibilities 50 Preparing the decision in an efficient manner 50 Conducting the decision-making process in an efficient manner 51 Following up on decisions 52 Tolerating Mistakes During Design Thinking 52 Defining mistakes 53 Looking at mistakes in a differentiated way 54 Find the Competencies You Need for the Task at Hand 54 Determining the target competencies 55 Taking stock of the actual competencies 55 Comparing the target and actual competencies and coming up with the next steps 56 Checking the competencies on an ongoing basis 56 Ensuring that the work is appreciated 57 Chapter 4: Planning a Design Thinking Project 59 Defining the Project Goals 60 Compiling goals and determining their order 61 Clearly formulating goals 62 Communicating goals 63 Planning Work Packages 64 Planning work packages for incremental progress at just the right time 65 Formulating and determining the work package order from the user's perspective 66 Using a task board 67 Correctly Planning for the Sequence 70 Estimating the required time 71 Creating a bar graph for a better overview 71 Correctly Planning for Your Resources 72 Correctly Planning for the Project Budget 74 Chapter 5: Supporting Teamwork in the Project 77 Assembling the Team 78 Relying on variety in team makeup 78 Defining roles on the team 80 Creating a matrix of responsibility 80 Applying the principle of self-organization 81 Clarifying Communication within the Team 81 Determining the project reporting format 82 Communicating is more important than documenting 83 Setting up communication rules 83 Arranging Workshops 85 Preparing a workshop 85 Holding workshops correctly 86 Providing equipment and materials 88 Designing Common Spaces 89 The right rooms promote communication and creativity 89 A flexible environment promotes flexible work 90 Part 2: The Problem Phases 93 Chapter 6: Understanding the Task 95 Finding the Right Search Area 95 Searching in the market segment 96 Searching in the area of technology 98 Searching in your own area of competence 98 A Well-Defined Task Is a Task Half-Solved 99 Clarifying what the task is and how it manifests itself 100 Clarifying who has the problem or wish 101 Clarifying where and when the problem or wish occurs 103 Clarifying why the problem or wish occurs 103 Identifying Knowledge Gaps 106 Systematically Closing Knowledge Gaps 107 Estimating Influences on the Task 108 Evaluating environmental influences 108 Identifying stakeholder influences 111 Reformulating the Task 114 Chapter 7: Putting Yourself in the Roles of Others 117 Recognizing Empathy as a Key to Success 117 Proceeding with Empathy 118 Create openness 118 Discount your own ideas/Tamp down your own biases 119 Share results 120 Proceed methodically 120 Collecting Information 120 Evaluating Information 121 Characterizing a customer using the Persona method 122 Understanding the situation with the help of an empathy map 125 Exploring the process with the customer journey 129 Describing the phases of the customer journey 130 Discovering the problems (and improvements) in the customer journey 131 Chapter 8: Observing People in Action 137 Putting Observations to Proper Use 137 Thoroughly Preparing Your Observations 139 Determine who should be observed 139 Determine what you should observe, whom you should observe, and when you should observe 140 Determine how you want to observe 142 Determine who should do the observing 144 Your Observations in a Systematic Fashion 145 Observing the right thing 146 Observing correctly 148 Avoiding observation errors 151 Applying Consistent Observational Methodologies 153 Artifacts analysis: Analyzing the customer's objects 154 Behavioral mapping and tracking: Documenting the customer's movements and activities 155 Mental models: Describing the real behavior of the customer 156 Mystery shopping: Detecting shopping behavior 156 Chapter 9: Redefining the Problem 159 Finding the Task 159 Preventing a search field that's too broad or too narrow 160 Avoiding the temptation to prescribe solutions 161 Formulating a meaningful and challenging question 161 Writing clearly from a user's perspective 162 Formulating tasks clearly and comprehensibly 162 Focusing On the Right People 163 Recognizing the Needs of Your Target Users 165 Analyzing Needs as Tasks 166 Determining the problems of the target person 168 Identifying the target person's wishes 169 Comprehending the reasons for particular problems and wishes 170 Selecting the Most Important Wishes and Problems 172 Determining the Right Point of View 175 Part 3: The Solution Phases 177 Chapter 10: Finding Ideas 179 Mastering the Creative Process 179 Opening Up Sources of New Ideas 181 Taking advantage of employee skills and knowledge at your own company 181 Surveying and observing customers and involving them in developing solutions 182 Surveying and working with suppliers 182 Keeping up with what the competitors are doing 182 Evaluating publications and patent information 183 Participating in trade fairs and conferences 183 Collaborating with experts 183 Understanding the Creative Principles 184 The decomposition principle 184 The associative principle 184 The analogy and confrontation principles 184 The abstraction and imagination principles 185 Know the Success Factors for Increasing Creativity 185 Questioning the conventional wisdom 185 Simplifying products and processes 186 Starting where others left off 186 Observing everything and everyone in every possible place 187 Experimenting with ideas 187 Networking 188 Overcoming obstacles to creativity 188 Selecting the Appropriate Creativity Techniques 190 Structuring the topic with mind-mapping 191 Systematically finding solutions with a morphological box 192 Chapter 11: Developing Ideas Intuitively and Creatively 195 Solving Difficult Problems Intuitively and Creatively 195 Generating Ideas by Brainstorming 196 Giving the flow of ideas a new boost 197 Getting to know the different brainstorming variants 199 Written brainstorming 201 Inspiring with Random Words 204 Getting New Stimuli through Provocations 205 Changing Perspectives with the Walt Disney Method 205 Assuming Different Mindsets with the Six Hats Method 207 Chapter 12: Evaluating Ideas 211 Selecting the Right Evaluation Method 211 Relying on Diversity in the Team for Your Evaluations 212 Quickly Selecting Ideas 212 Evaluating the Advantages of (and Barriers to) Ideas 213 Evaluating Ideas with Checklists 215 Determining feasibility 215 Estimating the fit 217 Testing your idea's desirability from the customers' perspective 217 Considering the economic viability and scalability of your idea 218 Ensuring sustainability 220 Determining adaptability 220 Making the Chances for Success Measurable 221 Finding and weighting appropriate evaluation criteria 222 Weighing criteria against each other 225 Evaluating and selecting ideas 226 Chapter 13: Designing Prototypes 227 Understanding the Benefit of Experiments 228 Clarifying Tasks in the Prototype Phase 228 Developing and Using Prototypes Efficiently 229 Plan less, experiment more 230 Minimize effort 230 Correct at an early stage 231 Tolerate errors 232 Using Different Prototypes 232 Making Ideas Clear and Tangible 233 Telling stories 233 Visualizing stories 235 Performing stories 236 Using digital prototypes 237 Demonstrating instead of presenting 238 Chapter 14: Testing Ideas and Assumptions 241 Clarifying Tasks in the Test Phase 241 Checking assumptions about the target users 242 Checking assumptions about problems and needs 243 Testing assumptions about the benefits of the idea 245 Testing with Interviews 247 Asking the right people 247 Asking the right questions 248 Asking the questions correctly 249 Testing with Online Studies 250 Comparing user behavior 250 Evaluating user behavior with key figures 251 Learning from Test Results 252 Part 4: The Part of Tens 255 Chapter 15: Ten Success Factors for Interviews 257 Ensuring Good Preparation 257 Finding the Right Entry 258 Taking Notes Correctly 258 Listening Actively 259 Paying Attention to Emotions 259 Always Following Up 259 Concluding Discussions Successfully 260 Completing a Sufficient Number of Interviews 260 Postprocessing Interviews 261 Using Every Opportunity 261 Chapter 16: Ten Success Factors for Implementing Your Idea 263 Prepare the Structures 263 Encourage Collaboration and Communicate Openly 264 Complete the forming phase in a positive way 265 Master the storming phase 265 Support the norming phase 266 Use the performing phase efficiently 266 Successfully prepare the adjourning phase 267 Create a Sense of Urgency 267 Establish a Leadership Coalition 268 Communicate a Vision for the Culture of Innovation 269 Establish a Company Culture Tolerant of Mistakes 269 Broadly Empower Employees 270 Overcome Resistance 271 Counter Objections 272 Curb Euphoria 273 Index 275

Prof. Dr. Christian Muller- Roterberg is a professor and lecturer in technology, management, and entrepreneurship at Ruhr West University. He heads the university's graduate program in business management. Prof. Dr. Muller-Roterberg has also been involved in a number of startups and IPOs. He is author of Handbook of Design Thinking