Is design thinking really that chaotic? No. But it may feel that way if you are used to a different approach. Design company IDEO has described the process of design thinking in three phases: hear, create and deliver. In the hear phase you get inspired, in the create phase you work from lots of ideas to prototypes and in the deliver phase you make the product. Quite structured, in other words.
Yet in many companies, thinking outside the box is not done. We are used to our standard project approach, in which we think the same, do the same analyses and develop the same products. In many cases, nothing wrong with that. But if you really want to innovate, just read Gijs's story and how, as a bicycle manufacturer manager, he is slowly learning to think like a designer.
Design Thinking fact: designing is not for designers with turtlenecks and fancy glasses. If you are optimistic, dare to experiment, collaborate and know how to use both your analytical and creative brain, you have it in you 🙂
Hi, I'm Gus
Gijs Akkersen is 38, devoted to Rotterdam, manager and board member at bicycle manufacturer Dynamo, is of the have-it-good-for-many type. After studying Business Administration at Erasmus University, he stayed with Dynamo. He did an internship there and is now in China a lot for his work, where the steel steeds are made. He is doing well.
But the company is faring less well. Sales are falling, competition - especially from China - has increased, so margins are under pressure. Gijs faces a challenge in the category how to go on now? Something has to be done, that's for sure. Gijs and his management friends are faced with a problem and they can't figure it out for a while with their calibrated ever-so-good approach.
Design Thinking fact: thinking like a designer can change the way you see your products, services, processes and strategy.
The black and white world
Gijs needs a fresh perspective. A good friend tells him he needs to hear the story of Daan Quakernaat s story. This is about building cathedrals. Quakernaat teaches Gijs about a black and a white world. The black one suits Gijs best, being about numbers, rules, structures and checklists. The white world just doesn't fit a computer or cubes and arrows. That one is about creativity, innovation and passion; the soft stuff. If you want to build a cathedral, you need both worlds.
Design Thinking fact: a designer can think 'integratively'. That means you are both creative and analytical. You can make good use of both hemispheres of the brain. By the way, you can learn this.
Design Thinking fact: design thinking is a way of solving a problem. It is a method of innovation that puts the end user at the centre. It involves the whole spectrum from idea to innovation.
Gijs meets the designer
Jeroen from the design club comes for a coffee and asks Gijs about his target group. Who are these people, what do they buy, what appeals to them, how do they use the bicycle? Gijs gets a bit off his rocker.
He knows how to define his target audience very well. But in terms of demographics, income class and origin. It is actually the average Dutchman he describes. Jeroen keeps asking. Why do these people buy from you, why do they buy this and not that? Actually, Gijs has no answer to that. Well, then go and find the target group.
Design Thinking fact: a designer has empathy. He can look at a problem from different angles and imagine what the product means in people's lives.
Gijs and Jeroen on trend safari
Together with Jeroen and a few others from the design club, Gijs takes to the streets for a day. A true trend safari. They look at how people use their bikes, take photos, films and interview cyclists. Jeroen spots a thirty-something on a bicycle with an unknown device attached to his wheel. He talks to him and it turns out he is extremely health-conscious; the device measures exactly the distance he covers on his bike and in what time. Gijs wonders whether it all makes sense what they are doing, but enjoys working with it and lets it happen to him.
Design Thinking fact: To design, you need optimism. You need to believe that you really can make the world a little better. That gives energy to take action.
They ask if they can interview the man and a day later they sit at his home. Koen - because that's his name - talks about his eating schedules in all colours and shows the tables where he tracks his cycling progress. Koen even keeps a weblog, on which he shares clever facts about what you can do to improve your cycling performance. Gijs has no idea yet what to do with it, but the insight that a bicycle is not just a means of transport to get from A to B, but is used as a health tool, is something he cannot shake off.
Design Thinking fact: Just the extreme user - who at first glance is not or does not seem to be a target group - can teach you a lot about the needs that exist in the market.
Gijs and Jeroen stuff the wall
The trends safari yielded a lot of insights. Gijs, Jeroen and the rest of the team sit down together in a project room and collect the lot. They stick the whole wall full of photos, yellow Post it Notes, observations and stories.
Mothers with bikes full of groceries and children, men with briefcases on their bicycles to work, sportsmen, students and many people talking on their bikes. Based on this, they look for common threads; themes. The theme of cycling combined with health just won't let go of Gijs.
Jeroen thinks of something crazy and organises an appointment with expert Simone, who knows a lot about healthcare trends. She tells them about the development that incomes are rising less rapidly than healthcare costs, that if we continue like this, healthcare will soon be unaffordable for ordinary citizens. But she also tells them that there are all kinds of innovative innovations in health prevention.
Gijs thought for a while "Surely we were going to launch a nice new bike, and now here I am at the table with a health expert", but slowly he started thinking in terms of opportunities and seeing the bigger picture. Simone showed him that the health prevention market is going to be a very big one in the coming years. Gijs feels on gut instinct that he "has something to grab here", but does not yet know exactly what and how.
Design Thinking fact: a design thinker actively seeks collaboration, inside and outside his organisation. The product you make does not stand alone, but is part of a bigger picture (holism). Make sure you have this overview and act on it.
All out with wild ideas
Normally, Gijs would start making a business case from this situation, calculating things and putting them into charts. But yes, that is a bit difficult, because he does not yet know which product belongs to the health prevention theme.
So hop into another session with designer Jeroen and his team to brainstorm and generate ideas. They go wild and the whole wall is once again full of the craziest and wildest ideas.
Now we are getting somewhere
Gus feels they are not there yet, "but we are going somewhere". It's starting to come together. Actually, he just wants to make a good bike, but he just trusts that the designers know what they are doing.
They make combinations of different ideas and work it out in sketches. Always new and better sketches, they share them with each other and there is discussion. They try out all kinds of things and find that they get closer and closer to the best idea.
The brainstorming yields a lot, such as an integration with mobile on your bike so you can see your performance while cycling, linked to an online system. Gijs gets excited!
You could develop a programme focused on health prevention for employees of large companies. You get those people to cycle with the help of the employer and their cycling performance is posted in real time on the intranet. For example, employees can all cycle together for a good cause, but you also get a discount on your collective health insurance. The bike will have a small sensor that communicates with your smartphone.
Design Thinking fact: a holistic view is important for some bigger innovations, i.e. if you want real impact. Well-known recent example is Apple linking ipods and itunes or the app Runkeeper.
Are we really going to do it then?
It turns out that the bike actually requires only a few modifications. The investment in hardware is less than budgeted, giving Gus the space to start a software development project. They start prototyping and start with a small batch of the new bike. A club of interaction designers is hooked up, and with a simple version of the online system, Gijs tries to get in to a number of companies. To start with, he strikes a deal with a company of 40 employees and they get to work!
Design Thinking fact: a design thinker dares to experiment. He does not make prototypes to prove that something works, but to learn and improve.
We are running like clockwork
The experiment has been going on for three months now and it is running like clockwork. The team has started talking to people participating in the programme and they are continuously learning. The idea is successful, but a lot of things need to be tweaked and improved. Twenty companies are now participating and they are going to scale up production of the bikes. There is also a health insurance company thinking along with them that is considering giving people discounts on their premiums if they join the programme.
Gijs has been in huge contact with the users of his bikes and it has been a huge learning curve. He sees that the world is much bigger than his focus on bikes. They will now consider how to make the programme accessible to everyone.
Design Thinking fact: design is now often used after the fact and associated with making beautiful things. However, you would want to involve designers much earlier in the process. Because who knows, you might come up with a bike with sensors that automatically transmits your performance to an online community, where you compete with your Facebook friends. It's happening...
Gijs looks back
What a story, Gijs reflects back home in his recliner. What did he think of the whole process?
"To my mind, it went in all directions; from wild ideas to talking to a health expert. But gradually it became clearer to me. It was inspiring and positive, but also scary. The situation at Dynamo was under pressure, so I had to come up with something good. It was five to twelve."
"The scariest thing I found was the leap to start doing something again. Thinking very big and then starting small with a prototype, while I had no hold on a business plan or anything like that. In retrospect, I am overjoyed that we did it step by step, because each step taught me an awful lot and made the product better. We now have a concept, which can hardly be copied, because of the unique process we went through!"
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