#5 Design Thinking Micro Course

From Design Thinking to 'design doing' (5 min read)

Ok, so now you’ve chosen your option, its now time to back it for the win. It’s time to commit the resources, and deploy your proposed solutions. You need to work out what actions are required, and what your priorities are. Gaining buy-in from key stakeholders and decision-makers is key. Implementing your solutions also entails developing and assigning tasks for execution. A key element here is that the actions needed for completion may fall outside of the skill set of the original team who were dedicated to solving the problem. If the solution requires expertise outside of the team, or even outside of the company, then those individuals and resources need to be sought. 

Feedback as an obligation

During the implementation phase, ideation and refinement mustn’t stop. Unlike more traditional processes in which previously completed tasks are often ‘shelved’, design thinking challenges you to remain on your toes. Developing great ideas, products and business models isn’t merely about going through a set of actions and reaching a perfect destination. It’s not black and white, and there are always opportunities for improvement. Even when you’re in the implementation stages, you should always be gaining feedback and using that feedback as a refining tool. It’s like sandpaper, in a way. You have to constantly mould your solution and keep at it. Using feedback is therefore an obligation. It’s important that you don’t ignore what you’ve learnt previously. Eliminating or improve the things that haven’t gone well, enhance the things that have, and focus on your key objectives. Remember, unique insights or ideas may evolve during this process, which can ether be helpful now for the current project, or you may come in handy down the track when designing other products or processes.

A critical aspect to the implementation of design thinking is the emphasis that must be placed upon visual analogies. Visual analogies in this context refer to the use of visual, cognitive, or otherwise tactile tools in order to make the problems or solutions addressed through design thinking more digestible. Wicked problems are often obscure in nature and quite abstract. Working with them is hard enough, let alone trying to explain them. And if your solutions are not easily understood by those making the decisions, then their impact and their ability to disrupt and generate change will be limited. So that’s where visual analogies come in. You might want to use graphs or charts. Or maybe even mind maps, or puzzles, or diagrams. Representing your ideas in a clear, visual manner is a much-needed step that is necessary if you want your solution to really sting. 

"You've got to be prepared to take a bit of a risk... if you spread your efforts across too many products, you are more than likely to produce a lot of ordinary products" 

Dr Alan Finkel AM FTSE - Chief Scientist, Australia

Ducere Global Leader

Key Takeaways

• Gaining buy-in from key stakeholders is key
• Even at the implementation stage you should continue to gain real-time feedback and make adjustments.
• Make your solution, idea or product pop by using effective visual analogies.

I will post the final instalment shortly and will delve into evaluation and data, providing a summary of this MicroCourse on Design Thinking.