Design Thinking - Double Diamond

Previously I wrote about some guiding principals from a facilitation and instruction course for Design Thinking I attended. I’ve been keeping those on my mind with recent session planning, but there was another element of the class that has been on my mind while laying out more DT workshops – the Double Diamond, sometimes also referred to as divergent/convergent thinking.

Imagine this scenario – while planning your DT session you go through a process of discovery and come up with some new ideas on how to tackle a difficult problem. Now that you have them you want to run an exercise to narrow the focus – but what to run? Typically, in these situations, I go into my bag of tricks using the methods that I've already done in succession and/or are ones I'm very experienced with. However, what if you are asked to pick something other than the same-old, same-old? What are you to do and what should you pick?

To help choose, it helps to understand what the double diamond is and how it can explain the process of design thinking in terms of divergence and convergence. Designed by The Design Council in 2005, the group introduced the classic double diamond design process model (PDF) using diverge-converge pattern to explain the process of finding the right problem and solution. That is all very wordy – but what does it actually exactly mean? I think Jasper Liu of ICF International describes it best:

”The design thinking process is ultimately a divergent and convergent thinking process. To find the right problem, design thinkers conduct a series of studies to understand people and their problems and then translate all kinds of findings into one or a few problem statements. To find the best solution, a cross-disciplinary group of design thinkers first brainstorm a variety of potential solutions. Through the exercises of evaluation, comparison, and consolidation, a limited number of solutions are selected for prototyping and testing.”

So, a good way of thinking of DT in terms of divergence and convergence is to imagine it like breathing. When we breathe in, we create new ideas and concepts (divergence), when we breathe out we narrow those ideas and actions into focused initiatives (convergence). Through the process of Design Thinking, we are therefore going through a process of breathing – creating new ideas and then filtering those ideas – creating prototypes and taking feedback and modifying. In essence, you are either taking part in creation via divergence or you are filtering via convergence. 

I find this concept very useful because it helps me better understand what methods to best to apply. Knowing the “flow” of Design Thinking sessions via the Double Diamond helps me better pick and stylize my session based on attendees and less on pre-set recipes of session design.