For industry leaders, a sustainable innovation culture is a key approach to dealing with the dynamic market landscape. But the challenge lies in sustaining this kind of culture. How do you ensure that your organization will never run out of innovative ideas and solutions over the years?
Where do you even start?
Innovation starts with design.
In a world where we are demanded to reskill and upskill, adapting design thinking in any thriving corporation may just be the answer. Design thinking is a human-centered methodology that focuses on addressing customer pain points and maximizing the present and possible resources needed to solve those issues. Using this method, organizations can take advantage of the following benefits:
- Define organizational roles and responsibilities clearly.
- Hone creative problem-solving skills for different situations.
- Develop resilient leadership mindsets in a fast-paced world.
- Increase productivity and efficiency within the organization.
- Garner more loyal customers and greater market share.
With these benefits, it’s no wonder that today’s organizations are experimenting and incorporating design thinking into their business models. Through the years, this method has been modified into different frameworks, which makes them more convenient to adapt to the different needs of any corporation.
Curious to learn more about these prominent frameworks?
Here is a quick overview of four unique design thinking models.
- The Traditional Design Process
| Define > Research > Ideate > Prototype > Choose > Implement > Learn
The traditional design process served as the inspiration for all modern design thinking models, and was made by cognitive scientist Herbert Simon in 1969. This framework mainly focuses on the process of making an idea into reality, whereas the more evolved design models emphasize on fostering empathy and collaboration within teams.
- The 5-Stage Design Thinking Process
| Empathize. Define. Ideate. Prototype. Test.
This process was formulated by The Stanford Design School, which is now known as the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design. The 5-stage process is the most widely-practiced model in design thinking. Interestingly, these steps are not to be treated as a linear procedure—rather, they are viewed as modes of thinking that can happen at any stage of innovation.
- The Head, Heart, and Hand
| Head (solve) + Heart (empathize) + Hand (create)
The Head, Heart, and Hand blends the most vital components in design thinking. Collaboration is the key in incorporating this framework that was designed by the American Institution of Graphic Arts (AIGA). Team members must work together to empathize with a problem, think of solutions, and finally solve that problem.
- The Double Diamond Design Process
| Discover. Define. Develop. Deliver.
British Design Council popularized the Double Diamond diagram, which is based on the work of linguist Béla H. Bánáthy in 1996, the “divergence-convergence” model. This framework highlights that the design thinking process has diverging and converging stages, which is why collaborative efforts and clear communication are important factors in producing innovations.
There are numerous variations of the design thinking framework in today’s market. But all these frameworks have the vital components of the methodology intact, namely: empathy, collaboration, creativity, iterative processes, and prototype-driven solutions. Executives and decision-makers must discern which design thinking model can best work for their organizations, or better yet, create their own design-thinking process.
To formulate an effective design thinking framework, it is recommended to learn more about the essential steps in using this methodology effectively. We rounded up four best courses in design thinking that can help your organization to assess your teams, cultivate collaboration skills, create customer-centered solutions, and develop highly-efficient design leaders.
Four Best Courses in Design Thinking
The course will provide practical understanding of the core concepts of design thinking from IDEO, and will help organizations to quickly develop ideation strategies and methods for problem-solving and risk management.
IBM offers a variety of courses and toolkit activities that will help corporations discover the present and future trends and issues in creating innovations, and how to build scalable frameworks for team collaboration.
The course will aid corporations in improving customer needs analysis processes and develop feasible and creative innovations, and also incorporate sustainable practices in a robust product architecture.
Standford Online’s Creativity and Design Thinking will help organizations in building lifelong practices in creativity and innovation with relevant application exercises, and also in creating an effective innovation model from ideation to experimentation.
Conclusion
Our world is truly unpredictable, and it demands for organizations to be ready for whatever comes next. We can never tell when and what would be the next disruption in the market. But with dynamic business frameworks that are built to foster efficiency and resiliency, industry leaders are rest assured that their corporations can handle any risk that may come their way.
Curious to find out more about innovative business frameworks? Read more about the latest enterprise technology, innovation, and sustainable industry practices at CXO Connect ME.
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Reference Links
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2015/05/how-can-design-thinking-help-your-business/
https://www.themartec.com/insidelook/design-thinking-strategic-business-innovation
https://medium.com/swlh/designing-strategy-using-design-thinking-for-business-strategy-fa34ff93e76c
https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/article/design-thinking-a-quick-overview
https://business.adobe.com/blog/the-latest/15-mind-blowing-stats-about-design-led-businesses