Design thinking is the path in empathy

There are many reasons why people, groups and corporations use design thinking. But the reason that I like design thinking is more of a side effect; one that I would like to see cemented into the path of creation.

Design thinking if done well, is more than problem redefinition and creative ideation. It is also keeping true to the originally discovered empathy; not letting the group stray.

It’s Saturday and the VP of marketing for the company has an interesting idea who passes it around and eventually it is worked on by the management team, analysts, product owner, and designers.

Although the idea is good and is getting better, the resulting product itself is starting to suffer from entropy.  

Two months later, the product is now worked on by the architects, developers, scrum masters, marketers, documenters, sales, pre-sales, consultants, support and eventually seen by customers and the customers' customers.  The product is pushed by many hands in many directions.

There are also sideways forces like other product managers within the company who use their own agenda and power structures to attach to the new idea and change it.

And throughout this long process white papers, PowerPoints, samples, forums, faqs, emails, round tables, and lunch-N-learns are generated, disseminated and consumed.  People who have no experience with the original discovery are now the experts.

For large products, there are many actors; many opportunities to change the direction away from the true north idea.  To identify and correct these deviations effectively, someone would need to have empathy for the user and authority to correct the course. 

But who exactly is that entity? Who works with all those departments and actors throughout the entire cycle and is at every meeting?  

A properly chosen team that engages design thinking becomes the guiding force.  They are the developers, documenters, sales, executives, support, architects, and more.  

Staying true is now part of the process and exists at almost every meeting.   Reasons for why the design "does this" or the architecture "allows for that" aren't pushed onto a team through documents, videos and artifacts alone, but also related to peers by a member of the team.  Storytelling is old and remains the most powerful form of education.

Opportunities to deviate happen all the time in every department, every day the product is being worked on.  Such is life.  Such is entropy.

The best design thinking teams never stop.  They pause and return to their jobs, only to resume weeks later, keeping it all fresh.  Never letting their empathy decay.

The power of design thinking is not in front loaded design or architecture, but in finishing it true to real problem.