The business climate of today is a VUCA climate, also known as the most volatile, competitive and disruptive business climate the world has ever known. The next thought would be, would following the old methods of transactions or interactions, be enough to get a foothold to survive in this scenario? If no, then what is the change in attitude and thought one has to bring, in order to meet the demands of today’s world at the same time keeping a grip on one’s sanity?
The buzz word is Design Thinking, majorly used by professionals today, to resolve various issues in business and social contexts. Which also means getting out of the conventional way of thinking and creating a new a form or alternative form of tackling a given situation.
Thinking – Then and now Then: Thinking – in traditional terms would mean cultivating thoughts, ideas, and solutions within given parameters and restrictions. Approach to resolving an issue is more linear and structured. Outcome: Restrictive. Blocks Creativity, More Rigid Outcomes. Now: Design Thinking – With the world experiencing the ambiguous aspects of the current market trends, businesses are making an effort to discover different or alternative solutions sets which may lead to one or more solution to a problem or situation. Alternate paths, out of the box solutions and un-harnessed creativity is the current mantra as companies want to keep evolving. To achieve this state, one has to design their thinking process to suit each problem and come up with competitive and potential solutions. Design Thinking does that, thus discovering parameters and alternative solution sets leading to one or more satisfactory goals.
Design Thinking – more effective in today’s environment – Let’s find out why! Challenges and competition have spurred the need for innovation. Innovation is the by-product of an Idea. Design Thinking is the process of visualizing these ideas and bringing them to life and completion. “Design-thinking firms stand apart in their willingness to engage in the task of continuously redesigning their business…to create advances in both innovation and efficiency – a combination that produces the most powerful competitive edge.” – Roger Martin, author of the Design of Business.
You can design anything, any process, and any outcome you want – be it the way you lead, manage, create or innovate. The process can be applied to basically every area of business, be it systems, procedures, protocols, or user experiences. The purpose and end result of Design Thinking is to improve the quality of experiences thus the quality of life.
Design Thinking believes in Organic growth of a firm, process, person or product. It is logical, imaginative, intuitive, believes in systematic reasoning to explore possibilities of the ‘what could be’ as opposed to ‘what is’, thus creating outcomes that would benefit the customer.
Features of Design Thinking
Used for solving complex problems to find desirable outcome. Not problem-focused but solution and action focused. Generates preferred solutions. Contributes to organic growth and real value-add to customers. Gets into the core of the problem to find best suited solutions by observing and discovering unmet needs.
Design Thinking – Phases
Design Thinking concentrates on solving problems by creating a framework to bring out best organic solutions. It is not traditionally bound but uses the tools of visual thinking, creativity and innovation, to find new solutions to old issues. With application of Design Thinking principles in our day to day transactions, the success rate for innovation drastically improves leading to out-performance. Who doesn’t want out-performance? Design Thinking is here to stay!
