How to innovate using Design Thinking

What is Design Thinking?

    Design Thinking is a collection of steps in which we seek to understand the user, define the problem in a simply way, in an attempt to identify one more solutions and then demonstrate the idea in a practical way and test it. It is a methodical way of thinking and working with tools as well as hands-on methods.

Ideal Workshop for Design Thinking

• Done in a physical interactive way with two or more teams.
• There is no limit of people participating the design thinking workshop. People participating are randomly divided into teams.
• Teams can work on same problem statement or different problem from each other. But one team work on one problem statement. 
• Teams work to solve one or more problems using design thinking methodologies.
• There are many apps available which can be used during the workshop from user interview to protocol. You can search such apps available in Playstore. 
• Stationary are used like white board, chart, sticky notes, pens and pencil.

Design thinking in real world 

PEPSICO CEO Indra Nooyi applied Design thinking to enhance the user experience. After applying the solution the company's sales grew by 80%

NIKE CEO Mark Parker was passionate about innovation in Designing the product. He applied the Design Thinking methodology in the product Design and came up with innovating products with new designs. The company's revenue has more than doubled since. 

TOYOTA completely redesigned the customer contact center using Design Thinking and brought multidisciplinary teams to work on its various projects. Recently Toyota announced it will transform a 175 acre site in Japan into a "prototype city of the future"

Starbuck decided to interview hundreds of customers using Design Thinking me

thodology to interview hundreds of customers to better understand what they expected from their coffee shops.

STAGE: 1

Through empathy, we are able to put ourselves in other people's shoes and connect with how they might be feeling about their problem, circumstance, or situation. Some questions to consider:

• What is the person feeling?

• What actions or words indicate this feeling?

• Can you identify their feelings through words?

• What words would you use to describe their feelings?

STAGE:2

The next step is to define the feelings and insights from empathy step and identify the main problem to be solved.

Condition:

Problem statement should be identifiable, positive, meaningful, and actionable.

Defining the problem is part of the process of shaping a point of view of USER (emotional reaction) – drawn from USER RESEARCH (insights) -- about the problem. Therefore, it should inspire the group, the team, or the organization to find solutions.

How to Frame a Good Problem statement?

A problem statement identifies the gap between the current state (i.e. the problem) and the desired state (i.e. the goal) of a process or product. 

Using the 4 Ws: “Our (who) has the problem that (what) when (where). Our solution should deliver (why).

e.g., “Our new mother has the problem that she has no one to talk to about the best way to care for her baby when she is at home alone every day. Our solution should deliver a way for her to feel connected to other mothers so she feels less isolated and alone.”

No Matter How Simple, Should:

• Avoid proposing solutions. It’s easy to think in the tangible terms of features and functionality, but these will only distract from first understanding the fundamental problem.
• Ask why. It’s a simple question to help find insights under the surface.
• Reflect. Take time to step back and look for connections and patterns. This is where insights lie that can set a product apart from competitors.
• Keep it universal. Avoid using jargon or any unnecessary complexities. The problem should be simple for anyone to understand, and ideally, to retell. 

STAGE:3

This is the stage where ideas are generated. Here are a few strategies that you can encourage:

• Mindmapping- You use this graphical technique to connect ideas to problems’ major and minor qualities.
• Brainstorming- You build good ideas from each other’s wild ideas
• Brainwriting – This is like brainstorming, but everyone writes down and passes ideas for others to add to before discussing
• Challenging Assumptions – overturn established beliefs about problems, revealing fresh perspectives.
• Sketch-notes- use rough sketches/diagrams to express ideas/potential solutions and explore the design space.
• Bodystorming- use role-playing in scenarios/customer-journey steps to find solutions.
• Storyboarding – develop a visual problem/design/solution-related story to illustrate a situation’s dynamics.

STAGE:4

The goal of a prototype is to test products (and product ideas) before spending lots of time and money into creating the final version of the sellable product.

• Paper/cardboard Prototyping 
• Digital/electronic Prototyping 
• Prototyping by computer coding/programming

STAGE:5

Testing helps the users to create their own experiences, and also helps us to identify how to improve their experiences next time.

The opportunity for empathizing is important at this stage, because one is able to see the user's experience and hear his or her thoughts, feelings, and ideas.

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SUMMARY