Building Successful Design Thinking Teams E-Book

Anna S. Link

• Herausgeber: Books on Demand
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 64

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Beschreibung

Design thinking is on everyone's lips. The method is considered to have miraculous powers with regard to the innovative strength of companies and organizations. Many companies are extraordinarily successful with it, others fail. This book is not a textbook on design thinking, and even though the method is presented, the focus is not on the phase model of design thinking - of which, by the way, there are several interpretations - but on the question of what makes design thinking successful. Which pitfalls lead to the fact that some companies are not successful with Design Thinking at all? What framework conditions must be created in order to be successful with Design Thinking initiatives? And finally: What are the requirements with regard to the composition and structure of innovative Design Thinking teams? The author has been advising companies on their use of agile methods and frameworks and on agilization for years. He has a broad wealth of experience in key success factors for the introduction of Design Thinking and the collaboration of Design Thinking with other agile methods and frameworks, such as Lean Startup or Scrum.

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Foreword

Introduction to Design Thinking

A Design Thinking Phase Model

Understand

Observe

Define synthesis

Exercise for creating a persona

Find ideas

Generate prototypes

Testing

Implementing design thinking in companies

Lean Startup - a brief introduction

Lean Startup as the next step after Design Thinking

Incorporation of Lean Startup in the "Generate and test prototypes" process step

Integration of Lean Startup for the development of the solution ideas developed in Design Thinking.

Scrum - an introduction

Scrum, Design Thinking and Lean Startup?

Design Thinking and Leadership

Success factors for design thinking teams

Establishment and development of design thinking teams

Foreword

Design thinking seems to be the method of choice, especially in the German-speaking world, when it comes to innovation and agile product conception. No matter whether it is software, hardware, services or entire business plans. Take "Design Thinking" and it seems to be guaranteed that breakthrough innovations will be achieved and the whole competition will be overtaken. But is this really the case?

Not least due to the influence and activities of SAP cofounder Hasso Plattner and the institute named after him, Design Thinking seems to be unstoppable. In the process, a very specific form and interpretation of design thinking is presented, which is by no means the only one and deviates in some aspects from those of the original forms.

Many books have been written about Design Thinking and there are also many about approaches such as Design Sprint (a form of Design Thinking known from the Google environment, for example) or about completely different agile innovation methods such as Lego(R) Serious Play(R) and many others.

This book has a different focus than conventional design thinking books. It is not about reproducing a multitude of methods. There are plenty of books for that, some with hundreds of methods. Particularly recommended here is "Das große Handbuch Innovation" from the Vahlen publishing house, which presents 555 methods and tools.

The aim of this book is rather to convey the necessary mindset with regard to the introduction, structure and design of Design Thinking. In particular, it also deals with the requirements for setting up Design Thinking teams and the framework conditions that support the successful implementation of Design Thinking and the optimal achievement of goals.

I wish you much success with your Design Thinking Challenge!

The author

Introduction to Design Thinking

Design Thinking is a framework that has become increasingly important in recent years. Due to the changes in the business world towards a reality characterized by VUCA (Volatility - Uncertainty - Complexity - Ambiguity), where changes often happen within weeks and months and not within years or decades, new requirements also arise. The market and its influences and needs have become increasingly diverse and complex. The time of top experts who can find the next product generations or solutions for upcoming problems on their own from their ivory tower, so to speak, is over. The pace of change is far too fast and the number of influencing factors to be taken into account is far too large. Only through the synergetic cooperation of people with the most diverse experience and knowledge is it still possible to survive on the market in the long term.

In this context, approaches such as Design Thinking, Design Sprint or Lean UX, but also a variety of other approaches such as Lego ® Serious Play ® have proven their worth. In this book, I will focus on Design Thinking, but recommend that you also get to know alternative tools and approaches and check them for possible use in the context of your questions.

Design thinking is an approach that goes back to the three Stanford professors Terry Winograd, Larry Leifer and David Kelley and focuses on people and their needs. Usercenteredness is the central principle of Design Thinking.

The benefit for the user / customer / user is in the foreground of the concepts and products developed with Design Thinking. The first question that Design Thinking addresses is always that of the user's needs. Technological feasibility and economic viability are only addressed subsequently, but are of course of great importance for an implementation decision.

As a true agile method, design thinking is based on an approach that states that the synergy of people with a wide variety of experiences and competencies creates a better and more goal-oriented solution than would be possible through individual specialists.

Design thinking has long since been used not only for the creation of innovative products and services. It represents a fundamental approach with which problems and questions from the most diverse contexts can be processed in a structured manner. The area of application includes product development, service development, process design, but also the development of entire corporate strategies. The multi-perspective view of the problem brought in by the various participants supports this.

Another typical agile approach is the iterative approach of design thinking. Here, you move through the process step by step, learn as you go, and can go back to earlier steps if it turns out that an approach does not achieve the desired goals. We are therefore moving here in a process model that is based on experimental development. Here, errors are not perceived as something negative, but as a central requirement of the development process. Schools and organizations in the context of Design Thinking assume different phase models with a different number of steps.

However, this does not mean that completely different approaches are used, but rather that different schools group the corresponding activities and questions differently and sometimes also weight them.

A Design Thinking Phase Model

For the presentation in this book, I assume a phase model as it is used in Germany, for example, by the Hasso Plattner Institute and a large number of trainers and experts trained there.

The model is based on a clearly structured concept. The six phases of the model are first divided into the problem space and the solution space. Both spaces comprise three phases each. While the problem space is about evaluating and understanding the problem or issue, the solution space is about developing solutions. In addition, both spaces are based on a diverging approach, in which more information and insights are to be gained, and on a converging part, in which the information and insights gained are in turn sifted, evaluated and concretized.

Within the different phases, a wide variety of methods can be used, depending on the problem and the team composition. There are books that offer hundreds of methods and approaches. Of course, not all of them have to be used and many of them have never been used even by experienced design thinkers. In fact, Design Thinking is not so much about methods and theories, but more about "doing it" and maintaining a healthy critical faculties towards the gained results, to question them and - if the gain of knowledge is not sufficient - to pursue other methods and approaches. The goal is always the realization of benefits for the customer, and this can look very different, just like the way to achieve it.

Basically, one must keep in mind: The method and the process are more or less the basis, the implementation in everyday life. However, this in turn is based on an attitude that harmonizes with the principles of Design Thinking and expresses itself through a certain type of collaboration with employees and customers. Without a corresponding attitude, Design Thinking, like every agile method and every agile framework, is not powerful, but at best a collection of new methods and techniques, whose usefulness, however, is considerably limited.